Oudong's killing fields

The remains of Khmer Rouge victims at the Ethreus memorial at Oudong

This is the memorial to the victims of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror at the foot of Oudong mountain, which is also known as Ethreus mountain, in the village of Phnom. I remembered it as a small wooden structure on my previous visit ten years earlier. Today it's surrounded by food sellers lining the road to the mountain and in recent years a concrete memorial has been erected to protect the remains that were found in a series of fifty small pits at Chamkar Svay, an execution site in a mango tree orchard nearby, in 1981. It's one of the few memorials that have been erected in recent years - the majority of sites have been abandoned to the elements. In addition two small prisons were located in the adjacent pagodas of Wat Kasap Preah Vihear and Wat Kampong Luong. In all, around 500 victims were found buried in the pits and witnesses report that many were killed with bamboo pipes and hoes, whilst some victims were hung from the mango trees as a deterrent to others.

A new memorial has been erected at the foot of Ethreus mountain

The collection of bones and skulls lie within a concrete memorial, close to the food and trinket stalls

One of the nameless victims of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror at Oudong

A bullet-marked building adjacent to the mango tree orchard where the KR victims were buried