Woes continued for 26 relocated former Borei Keila residents, who fainted after vomiting and suffering diarrhoea at Tuol Sambo Village in Dangkor district’s Prey Veng commune on Saturday.
Khum Khern, village chief of Tuol Sambo, told the Post that most of the villagers who had fainted were children under 10.
Food poisoning caused by contaminated bean sprouts was the most likely cause, but heat may also have played a part, he said.
“The many villagers who fainted were transported to the referral hospital in Choam Chao commune, Samdech Ov, and the Cambodia-Russia Friendship Hospital,” he said.
Cheng Savuth, a representative of development firm Phan Imex, said health officials had taken water samples and bean sprouts to be tested, adding a woman who had sold the bean sprouts had fled.
“I think she worried about the victims filing a complaint against her,” Cheng Savuth said. …
Khouth Sophakchakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012031254980/National-news/illness-strikes-borei-keila-evictees.html
Years after their eviction from central Phnom Penh, families continue to trickle back into the city from their relocation sites on the city’s outskirts. They search for cheap rental rooms instead of houses like the ones they were driven out of, in some cases, by bulldozers and baton-wielding policemen.
Many of those who have not returned say they cannot afford to because the loss of their home and employment has left them stranded in poverty.
Yan El, 56, lives near Oudong Mountain in Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district in a village still known as “Blue Tent Community”. She had been a vendor in Dey Krahom village in the city centre before police and employees of 7NG Company forcibly evicted its residents at dawn on January 24, 2009. Some families received housing in Damnak Trayoeng village, about 20 kilometres from the city centre, while others – like Yan El – set up camp under blue tarpaulins along a road near the village in Dangkor district waiting for homes.
Families were eventually given four by six metre plots of land in Phnom Bat commune, at the foot of Oudong Mountain. They built their homes themselves, with pieces of wood, tin and palm leaves for roofs. Two years later, most of these shelters have been abandoned, and others still look temporary or dilapidated…
May Titthara, p.1
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011121353315/National-news/relocated-and-living-on-the-edge.html
