Evictees face a difficult transition

FRIDAY, 03 SEPTEMBER 2010 15:02
MAY TITTHARA AND WILL BAXTER
THE PHNOMPENHPOST

Kandal province

Photo by: Will Baxter A former resident of Phnom Penh’s Dey Krahorm community carries her sick child past the shack where she now lives at a relocation site in Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district. Families living at the site say it is prone to flooding, and that there are no job opportunities in the area.

OVER the past eight months, Chork Teng has become an adept hunter of frogs and freshwater crab, stalking her prey at night in the rice fields near her ramshackle home in Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district.

But she laments the fact that she has been forced to adapt to this scavenger’s lifestyle.

A former resident of the Dey Krahorm community in central Phnom Penh, hers was among the 144 families evicted in a violent operation in January 2009, when police and construction workers employed by local developer 7NG Group levelled all remaining homes at the site.

The families were initially relocated to Dangkor district. Then, on December 12, 2009, a total of 467 former Dey Krahorm families and vendors were relocated yet again to the Tang Khiev community in Ponhea Leu’s Phnom Bat commune, said Va Savoeun, the community’s chief.

Dey Krahorm families go to court

phnompenhpost

April 05,2010 at 6:47 pm

Photo by: Heng Chivoan Left: The offices of the 7NG development company occupy the land that was formerly home to Chamkarmon district’s Dey Krahorm community, as seen on Tuesday. Top and bottom right: The houses that occupied the area in December 2008, before they were bulldozed the following month in a violent, pre-dawn eviction. A lawyer for 13 families from the embattled community appeared in Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday in a bid to secure compensation from 7NG for his clients.

ALAWYER for 13 families who were evicted from the capital’s Dey Krahorm community last year appeared in Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday in a bid to secure compensation from the development company that cleared their land and now occupies the site.

Te Chamnan, the lawyer for the 13 families, said his clients were called to the court to present information in their case against the 7NG development company, whose employees dismantled 144 homes in the Dey Krahorm community last year in one of the city’s most widely publicised forced evictions.

“The 7NG lawyer repeatedly asked me to clarify why these 13 families did not receive a home at the relocation site, and he said they will check this problem again,” Te Chamnan said.

Chan Vichet, a former Dey Krahorm community representative who attended the hearing as an observer, said the 13 families had not initially received compensation because 7NG said they had rented, rather than owned, their homes. Community records indicate that they were in fact homeowners, Chan Vichet added.

After earlier being promised up to US$20,000 in compensation from 7NG, 120 of the families evicted last year were eventually given only 777,770 riels cash (US$185) and a home in Dangkor district’s Damnak Trayeung village, Chan Vichet said. The remaining 24, he added, are still seeking compensation.

The 13 families who appeared Tuesday have been summoned to appear before the court again on May 24, Te Chamnan said.