A group of university students drawn to the site of a recent controversy surrounding Vietnamese construction near the border in Rattanakiri province were turned away by authorities yesterday, who claimed the site was a “prohibited area.” The 35 students, hailing from more than 20 universities in Phnom Penh and Kampong Cham province, had gone to the border to study the area between border posts 29 and 30, in O’Yadav district, to see for themselves the ponds and building construction that has been reported by the media, explained 21-year-old Pheng Sreysor.
 

“More than 30 local authority officials came to block us and they did not let us visit the location,” the Social Science student at the Royal University of Phnom Penh told Khmer Times. “I just wanted to get some information and to research about the border post number 29 which has been disputed. We are just normal Cambodian students and want to know about the border and they should give us the opportunity to explore about the border development,” she said.
 

Accepting the official’s claim that unauthorized people are prohibited from getting close to the border, she said it seemed as if local authorities were trying to hide what’s going on. Since April 2015, nine ponds have been built on the Vietnamese side of the border, contravening a border agreement between the two countries which puts a halt on construction in land yet to be fully demarcated. In July, Vietnamese soldiers started to lay concrete foundations, which drew condemnation and rebuke from Cambodian officials.

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