A transition day as we move back from Battambang to Siem Reap and a welcome return to the excellent Sala Hotel.
No visits today so a chance to give some detail on our Day 2 post: Last Friday we took up a last minute offer to visit an evacuee camp about 30k from the Thai border. Over 400 displaced families are living here in the grounds of the local pagoda. Most are housed in tents provided by China. They have nothing , having fled their homes in the conflict zone with no time to collect anything. Their houses are now destroyed and/or looted and the border area is dangerous with unexploded ordnance so they can’t go back. The ceasefire is holding but currently there is no prospect of a permanent peace agreement between the two governments…. essential before any resettlement can begin. And so the uncertainty continues and with it, boredom – no occupation, no income, nothing to do all day- in itself a situation ripe for unrest.
The government has set up makeshift schools on site but they are far from ideal. Children (and mums) are missing their friends, their extended family, their toys, their daily routine: food is monotonous, hygiene and medical facilities very limited and many suffer ongoing trauma caused by the conflict. It’s a desperate situation, replicated along the whole length of the Cambodia-Thai border. This situation may have dropped off the front pages/news bulletins in the UK…. but it hasn’t gone away and shows no signs of doing so any time soon.
Since August ’25, Support Cambodia has contributed over $5000 to the relief effort. Every penny of that money is making a difference. Thank you!
(With special thanks to Apostolic Prefecture of Battambang)
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