Displacement camps in Banteay Meanchey province sheltering thousands of families barred from their homes behind Thai barricades flooded after heavy rains, forcing hundreds to seek higher ground.
Many have stayed in crowded makeshift camps at pagodas on and off in the province since bouts of border clashes with Thailand last year that killed more than 100 people and displaced nearly one million on both sides before a ceasefire was reached in December.
The government says it plans to build nearly 3,000 temporary homes across three border provinces for tens of thousands of people who remain in camps that have flooded this week. It said the housing would be ready before the wet season, typically May to October.
“Last night, rainwater flooded up to knee level, but now it has subsided to ankle level and is mixed with mud,” said Yorn Ya, a 28-year-old mother with a two-month-old daughter who cannot return to her home in Beong Trakuon village, which she said lies behind razor wire and shipping containers installed by Thai forces.
“It is very difficult. I now have to raise the legs of the bed to keep it above the water,” she said on Friday, adding that the flooding has brought more mosquitoes and made it difficult to use electricity, cook and sleep.
At least 400 families from Ya’s camp have moved with their belongings to higher ground, provincial authorities said.
“At higher ground, it is crowded and there isn’t enough space,” Ya said, adding that she is waiting for authorities to help her and her daughter move. At least 20 families remain in the most severely flooded areas, she said.
Ya plans to move in with relatives of her husband, who is away for contract work, in Mongkul Borei district after separating from her parents’ family book – a small household record required to access social services in Cambodia – so she can apply for the temporary housing the government has started to build.
Met Hiet, deputy governor of Thmar Pouk district, who is overseeing the new camp on higher ground, said around 400 of the 1,631 families staying at Wat Kandol have moved.
“The water hasn’t flooded the entire pagoda compound, only part of the rice field area,” he said. “We don’t have enough locations for campsites while we wait for the temporary housing to be completed.”
Provincial authorities and a working group from the National Committee for Disaster Management have built 100 new tents for families fleeing the floods, Hiet said. He added that the water usually subsides about half an hour after the rain stops. Workers are also laying wooden planks across parts of the pagoda compound to raise the ground above the water level.
But some displaced people say the water levels are too difficult to cope with.
Huon Chhunly, a displaced Beong Trakuon villager, moved his wife and children to the new camp on Thursday.
“After it rains, the water is knee level,” he said. “It is difficult to live in. I still beg the government to help us return to our original home – the new site is not as comfortable.”
Cambodia’s government has faced mounting pressure to help villagers return to disputed villages along the Banteay Meanchey border with Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province, which Thai forces currently occupy and reportedly razed.
Construction of temporary housing is underway in Banteay Meanchey and Oddar Meanchey province, but with the wet season arriving, displaced families say help cannot come soon enough.
Ya urged more donations of supplies, especially milk for her infant daughter.
