Set amongst peaceful rice fields and farmland is one of Cambodia’s most grisly sites the Choeung Ek killing field where as many as 17,000 Cambodians lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge regime.

Located just 12km outside Phnom Penh Choeung Ek is where prisoners from the infamous Toul Sleng or S-21 prison were taken to be “extinguished”.

We’d contacted Sarim (the guy we met in Sihnaoukville) and arranged for him to drive us on his Tuk-tuk, being Cambodian he got free entry to the site (we paid $2 each) and walked around with us explaining things as we went.

Just standing outside the gate of the Choeung Ek killing field had already invoked a feeling of horror. I knew what I was about to see wasn’t going to be pleasant and if I thought too hard I could almost hear the terrified screams of a bygone day.

Inside Choeung Ek the first thing we came to was a modern Chedi of glass panels set in white with a classical Khmer golden roof. Inside was the final resting place of thousands of skulls piled high on shelves inside a square glass case and arranged by age and gender. Some of them bearing the marks of a grisly death. Underneath the skulls was a pile of clothing removed from the thousands of exhumed bodies.

We entered in silence, whilst Sarim waited outside, and walked slowly around the Chedi looking at thousands of skulls placed close enough for us to have reached out and touched them. Looking at the remnants of death on such a large scale it was impossible to fathom how any regime could kill so many people. It was so shocking it didn’t seem real.

I left the Chedi lighting some incense on the way and stopping for a moment to think of all those who lost their lives under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

At Choeung Ek 8985 bodies have so far been recovered from 86 mass graves dotted across the site. A further 43 mass graves remain untouched and some estimates claim as many as 17,00 people may have been killed there.

We strolled slowly towards the mass burial sites passing long ago demolished buildings where the Choeung Ek guards would have gone about their gruesome business. We first came to a sign marking the truck stop where the trucks carrying prisoners for execution would have stood. Trucks carrying 20-30 terrified prisoners would arrive every three weeks. The prisoners would be taken straight for execution or be detained in the dingy on site detention centre to await their death.

A few more steps took us to the place where the “dark and gloomy” detention centre once stood. Prisoners were usually executed immediately but when the number to be executed reached 300 a day the Khmer Rouge couldn’t kill them fast enough so they detained them for slaughter the following day.

Next to the long ago dismantled detention centre once stood the executioners office and the beside that a chemical substances storage room. This room was used to store substances such as DDT. DDT was used to sprinkle over dead bodies to remove the stench of rotting flesh from the bodies that if smelt could of aroused the suspicion of people working nearby and also to kill off victims buried alive.

Sarim then lead us to some of the mass grave sites. The whole landscape was dotted with large pits all of which Sarim explained were mass graves. Some of the larger mass graves were fenced off and a wooden plaque said how many bodies had been recovered there. Walking around this area it was almost impossible to stop an involuntary shiver going down your spine as you looked at the ground and saw fragments of bone and clothing left behind after the grave excavations.

A large tree in the middle of the grave site was apparently used to hold a loud speaker blasting music and propaganda to cover the screams of people as they were killed and their lifeless bodies thrown into a pit.

To begin with victims were killed by a bullet to the head but as ammunition ran out victims were bludgeoned or stabbed to death. Sarim showed us some palm leaves with lacerated edges and said the Khmer Rouge would kill some of the victims using the leaves. The edges were sharp but not sharp enough to kill without it being very slow and inflicting enormous pain on the victim. The area was surrounded by large palm trees that 30 years ago, when this horror was taking place, would have been small. Those same tress that I was walking past now where the ones whose leaves were taken and used in acts of horrific brutality.

In near silence we walked around the grave site taking in what we were seeing, barley able to imagine the abhorrent acts that were committed on the ground where we stood.

We left Choeung Ek in silence preparing ourselves four our next stop of the day Toul Sleng or S-21 the prison where many of the victims of the Choeung Ek killing field would have lived out their last few days. It was going to be a very somber day.

* Posted by j150vsc on 28/07/2007.