During my trip to Cambodia, this year, I visited the Killing Fields, near Phnom Phen. It's a place where, under the regime of the Khmer Rouge, in the 20th century (between 1975 and 1979), more than a million people were killed. The total number of deaths is estimated to be up to 2.5 million.
The genocide led by Pol Pot aimed to decimate everyone suspected of connections with the former government, as well as professionals and intellectuals, the usual targets of a communist regime, in order to abolish any contestation.
The executed were buried in mass graves. The executions were often carried out using poison, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. In some cases, the children and infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunks of trees and then were thrown into the pits alongside their parents.
The soldiers who carried out the executions were mostly young men or women from peasant families, followers of the regime. These killing techniques aimed to save ammunition or to avoid noise in the neighborhoods. People around didn’t even suspect that a genocide was taking place right next door. Does this ring a bell to you? It does to me.
The best-known monument of the Killing Fields is the memorial to the victims, where the skulls are organized according to the kind of wound they suffered. There’s also a museum for the remembrance of the genocide.
Dozens of mass graves are visible above ground, many of which have not been excavated yet. Commonly, bones and clothing surface after heavy rainfalls due to the large number of bodies still buried in shallow mass graves.
The utmost respect is given to the victims of the massacres through signs and tribute sections throughout the park.
As a call for peace and for the absolute need to cease, once for all, all the atrocities and the evil consequences of man's hatred for each other.
That keeps on going, in the name of other principles and motivations.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_Killing_Fields)
Isabel
www.isabelnolasco.com
Photos: Killing Fields, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Taken with my Canon EOS 5D MKIII, edited with Lightroom.
Have a wonderful weekend, my friends.
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