Phatt Vin

VPA-KH0040

Phatt Vin

Female

Khmer

Khmer

Trapeang Po Pel village, Cheung Kreav commune, Rolea Pha-ae district, Kampong Chhnang province

19590609

Farmer

Trapeang Po Pel village, Cheung Kreav commune, Rolea Pha-ae district, Kampong Chhnang province

1975

Trapeang Po Pel village, Cheung Kreav commune, Rolea Pha-ae district,

The death of my mother, Neav Khim

In 1972, because our village was located next to an area controlled by Lon Nol soldiers, the Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated my family and all villagers from the Trapeang Porpel village, Cheung Kreav commune, Rolea Phieat district to Tik La-ak village, Chong Rong commune, Tikphos district, Kampong Chhnang province. As a child, I did not know the Khmer Rouge, who came to evacuate all of us. My family continued to live in Tik La-ak village until the liberation day, April 17, 1975. After that day, we came back to another village that was located next to our home village.

Under the Lon Nol regime, my father, an ordinary person, was killed by gunfire, and my sister, Phat Thy, died of disease. When the Khmer Rouge enlisted Phatt Sun and Phatt Sin, my brothers, in the army, they sent me and my mother to live in the Tik Cheng village of Cheung Kreal commune.

After living there for a month, they relocated us to our home village. In 1975, Yey Tom (deceased), a person who took charge in the village at that time, put me to work in a children’s unit and sent my mother to do farming in a special unit. From that moment on, we lived separately. In late 1975, suffering from a lack of food and overwork, my mother got sick. She suffered from fever and backaches. At the time, because her work place was next to mine, I sometimes ran to pay her a visit. However, whenever I went to meet her, I was not given any food to eat. I knew that she worked from six a.m. to eleven a.m., without receiving any breakfast at all. At eleven a.m., [she] received a ladle of rice soup with a dish of food (which contained no vegetables or meat). After eating, [she] continued her work until six p.m.—which was when she received another ladle of rice soup to eat. Then, she kept working until eleven p.m., without receiving any extra food at all.

After being forced to overwork, she became gravely ill. Her unit chief, whose name I do not recall, was Yey Tom’s subordinate. At one point, Dary, a Cham-Muslim child who worked with me, told me that my mother had become gravely ill at her work site. After hearing this news, I often went to visit her, bringing her rice soup packed in Tbeng [a kind of tree leaf]. I did so, because she was not given any food to eat after she became ill, and could not work. Even though I visited her very often, one day, I went to visit her as usual, but I could not find her at her work place.

A unit chief, whose name I have forgotten, told me that my mother had been taken to a hospital located at the Trapeang Porple village. I remember, it was four days after she became gravely ill, that they sent her to the hospital. Shortly after hearing the news, I went right to the hospital in order to find her. Upon my arrival at the hospital, when I could not find her, I asked Nory, a nurse (deceased), whether or not my mother had been sent to this hospital. In response, she said she did not see my mother here. As soon as I heard this news, I went, in great doubt, to tell the unit chief, whom I had just met shortly before my mother was taken. I told her that I did not see my mother at the hospital. And I asked her to where my mother had been taken. She had already summoned other people to send her to the hospital, she said.

Doubtfully, I continued to ask her the same question. However, she said, “Comrade! For elderly people who can’t work, to keep them is no gain, and to destroy them is no loss.� Then, after she told me that my mother had been taken away and killed, because she could no longer work for them, I went back to my unit. Still, I continued to ask others about news of my mother. Then at one point, Yey On, currently living in Tik Cheng village, Cheung Ek commune, Rolea Phieat district, Kampong Chhang province, told me to stop asking others for news about my mother, because my mother had, in fact, been taken away and killed. Additionally, she also told me not tell others, that she had told me about the incident. She did not witness the incident, but she saw my mother being taken away by three militiamen. That was why she believed that my mother had been executed. I do not know who killed my mother or how my mother was brutally executed. I think Yey Tom must be held responsible for my mother’s death, because she was the big chief who supervised everything in the cooperative. My mother disappeared [and was never seen again] from the moment [this incident took place].

Complainant

No;

Hospital

No;

20090723

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