Cambodia should halt 'forced evictions' at Angkor Wat: Amnesty

[geovalin]

Rights group Amnesty International on Friday urged Cambodia to immediately stop the ongoing "mass forced evictions" of 10,000 families from the Angkor Wat temple complex.

 

The Cambodian government late last year ramped up the relocation of families living within the sprawling UNESCO world heritage site to a new community being built on former rice paddies 25 kilometres (15 miles) away. Authorities say they are acting to protect the ruins by moving squatters whose informal settlements are damaging the local environment by producing rubbish and overusing water resources.

 

The government says people are moving voluntarily but Amnesty said its research found that villagers faced "implicit threats if they did not move".

It said those affected were not properly consulted or given enough notice.

 

"These are forced evictions in disguise and on a mass scale. People were pressured to volunteer and made to feel fearful of reprisals if they refused to leave or challenged the evictions," Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty's deputy regional director for campaigns, said in a statement.

 

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