Tourists began leaving Koh Rong Sanloem and canceling their bookings as authorities extended Thursday’s eviction deadline for businesses and resorts in the island’s Saracen Bay area, spray-painting resorts with new messages to demolish their businesses.
Nearly 100 families living near Takhmao city are facing eviction as authorities pledge to restore the heavily-polluted river running next to their homes in a project linked to a real estate company with connections to the prime minister’s family.
About 50 people gathered in a circle with offerings of fruit, flowers and a pig’s head Wednesday as they burned incense sticks and shouted misfortunes they wish would befall the mix of tycoons and government-connected elites who have increasingly gobbled up portions of the lake.
Off the banks of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva peninsula, in the shadow of the famous Sokha Hotel, the ubiquitous fishing boats and sand dredgers have been replaced by military vessels, and local fisherpeople have been asked to temporarily clear the area with no compensation until the Asean Summit is over.
A protest drawing several thousand people from across Angkor Archaeological Park took an abrupt turn Friday, when the land management minister said there were no plans for a mass relocation from the park’s Preah Dak commune – days after residents said authorities had told them the opposite.
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.
A Land Ministry official said development of Boeng Tamok in northern Phnom Penh was a higher priority than the water body’s preservation, adding that only a lake like the Tonle Sap was worth preserving.
The floating communities in Phnom Penh have been allowed three more years on the water, but the majority ethnically Vietnamese families say they have few options on Cambodian land.
More than 200 officers demolished dozens of Phnom Penh houses to make way for the $2-billion Sihanoukville expressway, part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, as residents rejected what they said was inadequate compensation.
District authorities deleted photos on reporters’ cameras and made them leave a public area as authorities demolished residents’ homes, allegedly without compensation, near the Boeng Tompun lake development.
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