Friday 07 November 2008
Watch Video
Thirty years after the Khmer Rouge genocide, survivors try to forget. In the psychiatric ward of a municipal hospital, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat’s office has become a precious place of refuge for those who were in their 20s during the Pol Pot regime.
By FRANCE 24
A morning in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, 30 years after the Khmer Rouge genocide. We are in the psychiatric ward of a municipal hospital and it is crowded. Most of the patients were in their 20s during the Pol Pot regime. Himself a survivor, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat is the first psychiatrist to address the killing fields syndrome. His patients number in the thousands. They all bear heavy psychological scars.
A civil war, bombings, masacres and purges that cost the lives of one quarter of the population - 1.7 million victims. For a generation of survivors, it is impossible to forget. For some of them, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat’s office has become a precious place of refuge. Like for Theary: "It was three days after I gave birth to my first son…Angkar, the Khmer Rouge brought in some people…And then, they killed them all in front of us…To make an example…To teach us to obey… It s the reason why, since then, I see a man who runs very fast…He escapes into the ricefields….Then there is another man…With black clothes…He shoots him in the back…Then he falls…This image always stays in my head… "
Theary is able to describe her nightmares but most of the patients cannot. For the doctor, silence is a key contributor of the violence that undermines Cambodian society today. And for a cure, he relies on mysticism: "Here you have a kind of palm tree leaf. It is this kind of thing that can take away their despair and anxiety" he says. A handful of Khmer Rouge leaders are about to go on trial in an international tribunal. The killing fields syndrome shows just how deep the trauma of the genocide is.
Watch Video
Thirty years after the Khmer Rouge genocide, survivors try to forget. In the psychiatric ward of a municipal hospital, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat’s office has become a precious place of refuge for those who were in their 20s during the Pol Pot regime.
By FRANCE 24
A morning in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, 30 years after the Khmer Rouge genocide. We are in the psychiatric ward of a municipal hospital and it is crowded. Most of the patients were in their 20s during the Pol Pot regime. Himself a survivor, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat is the first psychiatrist to address the killing fields syndrome. His patients number in the thousands. They all bear heavy psychological scars.
A civil war, bombings, masacres and purges that cost the lives of one quarter of the population - 1.7 million victims. For a generation of survivors, it is impossible to forget. For some of them, Dr. Ka Sunbaunat’s office has become a precious place of refuge. Like for Theary: "It was three days after I gave birth to my first son…Angkar, the Khmer Rouge brought in some people…And then, they killed them all in front of us…To make an example…To teach us to obey… It s the reason why, since then, I see a man who runs very fast…He escapes into the ricefields….Then there is another man…With black clothes…He shoots him in the back…Then he falls…This image always stays in my head… "
Theary is able to describe her nightmares but most of the patients cannot. For the doctor, silence is a key contributor of the violence that undermines Cambodian society today. And for a cure, he relies on mysticism: "Here you have a kind of palm tree leaf. It is this kind of thing that can take away their despair and anxiety" he says. A handful of Khmer Rouge leaders are about to go on trial in an international tribunal. The killing fields syndrome shows just how deep the trauma of the genocide is.
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