Oddar Meanchey police have arrested at least seven residents after a violent brawl that involved the brandishing of sticks and knives between villagers and authorities over disputed land on Tuesday.
Indigenous Suoy families say they have blocked a company formerly chaired by the prime minister’s nephew Hun Chea from clearing their farmland in Kampong Speu, and are seeking compensation.
Indigenous communities attempting to register communal lands are often left in bureaucratic limbo and are at risk of losing this land, advocates said this week, even as the government handed more than 4,000 hectares to three communities in May.
Officials have ordered the owners of about 57 souvenir and restaurant stalls near Angkor Wat to take down their stands and leave the complex by Friday, but vendors petitioned for relocation inside the park.
Prime Minister Hun Sen handed out gifts and promised metal sheeting as building materials to families who have agreed to vacate their homes that fall within Siem Reap’s Angkor park, saying the relocation site in Run Ta Ek commune will be turned into a modern satellite city.
A flood-protection project is 70% complete around the site of major Phnom Penh flooding for the past two years, as residents around the Prek Tnaut river remain watchful over the season’s severe rains while water levels creep up.
Residents around Phnom Penh’s Boeng Tamok followed authorities in their boats and protested the filling of the lake, which they said was affecting their fish farm enclosures.
Around 4,000 hectares of state forests have been transferred to collective ownership by indigenous groups in Ratanakiri, according to government decrees.
A deputy village chief has come to the aid of families affected by flooding in Banteay Meanchey’s Malai district, as rains lashed the area and inundated crops and homes.
Sitting alone in a small wooden house, Kham Salong, 37, says she has struggled without her husband, but still fully supports the environmental work he pursued that landed him in jail.
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