The horrors of S21 under the Khmer Rouge

****************WARNING*******************

This blog post includes photos and descriptions that you may find distressing. Please do not read this post if you may be upset. We visited memeroials from the Cambodian civil war. This post includes discriptions of the horrific  war crimes, killings and torture of this period of time. This has been the hardest post to put together from our trip so far. 

Later we will be writting a much more up beat post about the projects we have been visiting. Projects making a significant impact in people lives. 

              

Yesterday we went to S21 a former prision used by the Khemar Rouge between 1975-1979. With ruthless efficency this prision saw over 22000 prisioners pass through its doors to be interrorgated and tourterd before being sent to the killing fields to be executed. 

The Cells

Mass cells holding dozens of people

Leg irons securing 9 victims on each line for mass cells

Individual cells

It was a sobering experience to visit a place that was used as such a place of evil. The tortures inflicted on the prisoners ranged from beating with iron bars, nails being removed and then alcohol applied to the wounds, drownings, suspensions and electrocution. All in an attempt to force the prisioners to confess to imaginary crimes against the Khemar Rouge. 

Torture bed

                            Paintings of the types of torture 

After they had confessed they where taken at night, blindfolded, put into trucks with the promise of a new prison farm. It was a cruel lie to make them come quietly. 

Victims were stripped of everything

Today we followed the route of the Men, Women and Children who were taken 15Km away from S21 to the killing fields. They were then forced to kneel blindfolded by a large pit with propaganda being blasted out of speakers. The Khemar Rouge executors would then beat the victim across the back off the neck with a metal bar, a hoe or an axe. Then just to be certain the victim had its throat slit. The victims bodies where dumped into these large mass graves (the biggest holding 450 people). 

Each dip is a mass grave which held dozens or hundreds of bodies.

Lots of remains have been removed and placed in the huge memorial. 17 levels of this structure are filled with the skulls and bones of the victims. 

    

Not every bone and scrap of fragment has been removed many are still in the earth below the ground we walked across. Every time it rains the ground shift and new bits of bone and cloth come to the surface. These are collected and put into containers by the sites staff.

Notice the Children's shorts?

Bone and cloth fragments in the ground on the path we walk

The following was the most distressing part to learn. Women and children where not spared or shown any mercy. The Khemar Rouge propaganda stated that "when cutting down grass you must remove the roots". This meant killing the entire family. Women had their babies ripped out of their arms. The soliders would then swing the baby by the legs and bash the childs head against a tree. Only after this would the women be killed tossed in the pit and the baby thrown in after her. 

War is always horrible but the brutaility of this civil war appears to be worse then many. We have both been deeply impacted by these sites. 

On the way back to our temporary  home we passed through local villages full of happy laughing children and adults. It was a lovely way to end our day seeing that the Cambodian people are not weighed down by history and whilst they will never forget it will not be the only thing this country is recognised for.