Evictees living in squalor again

Thursday, 29 April 2010 15:03 MAY TITTHARA AND WILL BAXTER

Photo by: Will Baxter

Borei Keila resident Prak Sophea, 49, sits in a wall-less, ground-floor dwelling where she has lived since being evicted from an apartment. She is waiting to be assigned a home by the government.

SUN-BAKED rubbish and raw sewage amalgamate in the lane that runs past Prak Sophea’s wall-less dwelling, threatening to spill into the space she has been forced to occupy with another family since being evicted on Sunday from temporary housing in Prampi Makara district.

“I cannot bear the bad sanitation, especially when it is raining,” she said. She explained that poor drainage results in flooding that sends sewage into her new home.

The 49-year-old widow, who learned in 1998 that she was HIV-positive, had been occupying a ground-floor room in a dilapidated building in the district’s Borei Keila community since June 2009, waiting for City Hall and a private development company to give her permanent housing. The company, Phanimex, has been tasked with providing on-site relocation units for 11 HIV-affected families, including Prak Sophea’s, who were evicted from prime real estate in front of the Ministry of Tourism building last year to make way for a public garden.

Borei Keila families petition Hun Sen for better housing

Monday, 26 April 2010 15:01 May Titthara

Photo by: Heng Chivoan

Sin Sambath, 51, moves into his new home on the first floor of a building offering on-site relocation housing in the central Phnom Penh community of Borei Keila on Sunday.

MORE than 120 families facing eviction from their homes in Phnom Penh’s central Borei Keila community sent a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday requesting either US$40,000 in compensation or $20,000 and ground-floor apartments measuring 4 metres by 12 metres, representatives said Sunday.

The families have so far refused to register for on-site relocation housing offered by City Hall, saying the units in the building – which was opened on April 7 – are too small, and that those who do not receive ground-floor apartments will be unable to support themselves by running businesses out of their homes.


[note: refusing to participate in the ballot is an all-or-nothing gamble for these families. The City has a history of waiting out the resisters until there are so few left nonviolent resistance can easily be ignored or swept aside. This community is showing courage. Do they have the strategy to go beyond this?]

“They promised to provide us with 4-metre-by-12-metre [homes] with electricity and water supplied, but now they want to provide us with only 3.8-metre-by-9-metre [homes] without electricity or water,” said representative Nuth Sokly. “How can we accept it?”