The History of Cambodia's Killing Fields

During the Khmer Rouge reign, from 1975 to 1979, an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million Cambodians died through execution, starvation or disease. This was almost a quarter of the country’s population. Killing fields dot the country of Cambodia, with more than 20,000 mass grave sites containing more than 1.38 million bodies according to the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam). The largest of the killing fields was Choeung Ek, which sits on the outskirts of Phnom Penh and today serves as a monument to all those who died – and survived. It also serves as an educational tool to ensure history never repeats itself.

One of the darkest times in modern day history took place in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, when the Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge regime ruled Cambodia. Promising the country peace after years of civil war and secret bombing campaigns from America, who were embattled in war with Vietnam, Cambodians flocked onto the streets to welcome soldiers during the fall of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.

However, the promised peace never came, and residents were immediately rounded up and sent to the countryside as part of the communist regime’s plans to create an agrarian society. Personal possessions were confiscated, money abolished, family ties severed and the almighty Angkar set the brutal laws, which saw the population sent to work the land under appalling conditions.

Toul Sleng – S-21 Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh – was the main political prison, where suspected enemies of Angkar were sent. As Pol Pot and the top commanders’ paranoia spiralled so did the number of Cambodians detained at S-21. Once inside, prisoners were either tortured to death or sent to nearby Choeung Ek for “re-education” – execution. An estimated 12,273 were detained at S-21, with only seven known survivors.

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