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Cambodia remembers genocidal horrors of Khmer Rouge with re-enactments at ‘Day of Anger’

  • Hundred gathered at the notorious ‘Killing Fields’ site in Phnom Penh to commemorate the 2 million people killed by Pol Pot’s murderous regime

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Student re-enact the barbarity of the Khmer Rouge regime during Cambodia’s annual ‘Day of Anger’. Photo: Reuters

Black-clad students re-enacted the horrors of the Cambodian genocide at the “Killing Fields” on Monday to commemorate the 2 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge’s murderous, Maoist regime.

Hundreds gathered at the notorious site in Phnom Penh to mark the annual Day of Remembrance with prayers and performances, including students wielding wooden rifles, knives and bamboo sticks in mock attacks.

A child cries among those playing dead in a performance to mark the annual 'Day of Anger' at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial in Phnom Penh. Photo: AFP
A child cries among those playing dead in a performance to mark the annual 'Day of Anger' at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial in Phnom Penh. Photo: AFP

“We performed these scenes in order to remember the genocidal Pol Pot regime and the cruelty that Cambodian people suffered,” said Chhaem Khleuong, a fine art teacher who played a Khmer Rouge cadre.

A quarter of Cambodia’s population died under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime, culled in mass killings or of starvation, forced labour or torture.

His brutal reign came to an end in 1979, and the Khmer Rouge atrocities are still remembered at museums and sites dedicated to victims of the genocide.

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