Cambodia is a country that is healing. Healing from years of war and corrupt government rule. The rule of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979 brought widespread devastation to Cambodia as 2 million people were killed through genocide. In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge took the capital of Phnom Penh and forced everyone out of all of the cities of Cambodia. Everyone was forced into farming communities in the countryside. The Khmer Rouge began killing educated people, teachers, and doctors because they thought they had been corrupted by Western thinking. In addition, they killed religious people such as Buddhist monks and over 90% of the Christians. Many of those who were forced to work the fields died from starvation and disease.
From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (or S-21, a former high school converted into a prison). The prisoners were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed. Of the estimated 20,000 prisoners, only 7 survived.
You can still see blood stains on the floors, ceiling,walls
Cots the prisoners were shackled to and instruments used to torture and kill prisoners.
The very small cells prisoners were chained in.
Human skulls are on display in a glass-sided stupa with 17th levels.
Choeung Ek, the site of a former orchard and Chinese graveyard south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is the best-known of the sites known as The Killing Fields. The Killing Fields are mass grave sites where millions were killed and their bodies disposed of. There are an estimated 20,000 mass grave sites around Cambodia.
Many small children and infants were thrown
against this tree before they were thrown in the grave
After hearing these stories and visiting the sites where these horrific events took place, I gained a very strong compassion for the people living in Cambodia. They need Jesus! They need love, hope, and truth.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
