Surviving the Killing Fields

Sony Lay with his family in Cambodia. He says he still lives in fear of men wearing black, and not having enough to eat. Photo / Chris Leather

New Zealand Herald
Saturday Feb 21, 2009

Chris Leather

Sony Lay was 11 years old when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975. Thirty years on, he began to share his memories with Chris Leather, a New Zealand Volunteer Service Abroad worker at the Cambodian Ministry of Health. This is Sony's story as told to Leather

We were so hungry we ate things we had never eaten before, like worms, grasshoppers, snakes and rotting plants. This was only one of my Khmer Rouge memories.

In 1975, I was an 11-year-old, living with my parents and four brothers and sisters, in Phnom Penh. I loved going to school and playing in the streets with my friends - although it wasn't quite so much fun anymore.

There were too many soldiers leaning against walls and waving guns around. Some buildings had barbed wire around them. Planes flew low overhead at night and disturbed my sleep. Some dropped flyers that said something about the Khmer Rouge but I didn't understand. I heard guns in the distance. I asked my parents what was happening. They told me not to worry.

On April 17, 1975, I was at home. I refused to go to school that morning because there were soldiers everywhere. I was frightened. My father stayed home from his government job too. We sat around the house quietly, waiting fearfully for something to happen. Every now and then, there was a burst of gunfire.

Then my father said, "They are coming". We peered out the window. A single file of black-clothed young men with guns, was marching along the street. I didn't know who "they" were and why they were coming. Trucks followed with people yelling through megaphones - "everyone must leave Phnom Penh".

No one believed the announcements. They locked their doors and stayed hidden. The black-clothed men banged on doors and fired guns in the air. They told people to come out of their houses or they would be killed.

My mother gathered some food and we all went out on to the street to join the hundreds of people emerging from their homes. Some were running, others crying. Soon we were walking with them. We had no idea where we were going; we just followed the others.

By the end of the first day, we reached the Intercontinental Hotel, a distance of 2km from home. Families shared food and water and lay on the footpath to sleep. The next day the masses of people seemed even bigger. People shuffled along and stopped for long periods. The children played chasing games. We thought it was like going on a picnic.

By the end of day two, we had moved only one more kilometre. On the third day, we reached the Vietnamese Embassy - another kilometre. All the time there were soldiers hitting people with sticks, telling us to hurry up and threatening to kill anyone who hadn't left the city within three days. I noticed the soldiers looked about the same age as my 14-year-old brother, but their eyes were cruel.

On the fourth day, we reached the bridge over the Tonle Bassac river, 6km from home. It was so jammed with people it took several hours to cross the 200m-long bridge. We continued walking, carrying our few meagre possessions, and sleeping on the roadside. The Khmer Rouge soldiers beat people who sat down to rest during the day, especially the old people.

After several days, dead bodies started to appear by the side of the road. Curious children took a closer look and poked the bodies. Some were puffed up, covered with flies and smelled bad.

The road followed the Mekong River. Children jumped into the water to swim and then ran out to catch up with their families. One day I leaped into the water and landed on something soft - it was a body floating in the water with no clothes on. I screamed. I didn't go in the river again. This was when I started to feel very scared.

We just kept on walking for days and nights. I heard someone tell my parents that many people had been kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge and had their heads cut off. My mother cried.

Soon we ran out of food. We had not been able to bring much because we could not carry it. We went into the forests and fields to get roots and small plants to eat.

It took 10 days to reach the Neak Louen ferry across the Mekong River where Khmer Rouge soldiers took people across in small boats. On the other side walking was more difficult because the road had been destroyed to stop tanks driving along it. Two weeks after leaving Phnom Penh we walked into the small village where my parents had been born. The family home had been taken over by Khmer Rouge soldiers. We were told to share a house with relatives.

Some people had to live in the fields because there weren't enough houses. Others tried to build them. They went into the forest and cut wood and bamboo and used leaves to cover the walls and roof. They were city people and didn't know how to build - sometimes the houses fell down or were washed away in the rain.

My father had worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He risked being killed if the soldiers found out. My parents dressed in clothes like the villagers so they wouldn't be noticed, but I knew they were scared.

For the first few months, families could live and eat together and have their own food. Adults were put into teams to work in the rice fields or dug canals, and a children's team looked after the animals and made compost from the animal dung.

After a while the soldiers made everyone eat communally and eat only food provided by the Khmer Rouge. I thought it would be fun to eat with others and share food, but it didn't work out that way. We got a small amount of rice porridge with watery soup once a day and had to make it last. We were hungry all the time.

Soon there was no rice left, no fish in the ponds and canals, no food anywhere. All the rice being farmed by the villagers was taken away by the soldiers. We didn't know where it went. One day my father helped some soldiers to push a wagon full of rice, hoping they would give him some but they gave him nothing.

Sometimes we went to the rice paddies to dig for crabs in the mud, even though we knew we might get bitten by poisonous snakes. If we were caught picking wild berries we would be killed but it was okay to eat weeds. Some people died from eating poisonous plants.

I cried because my mother was so thin.

I remember the leaflets distributed in the village, with photos of Khmer Rouge soldiers killing people. I was frightened all the time. The soldiers would ask us children questions about our parents.

People would disappear from the village. We all knew what happened to them but didn't talk about it. We would see people floating dead in the rice field. I worried that my parents would disappear.

One day all the children in the village were gathered up and taken to live in a camp together, about 10km from our parents. My father told me to work hard so that I would stay alive.

One year merged into the next. Twice in four years I got a pass to walk the 10km, with my brothers, to see our parents. They weren't allowed to visit us and risked death if they tried.

We were ordered to wear only black. We had no toothbrushes or soap to wash ourselves. When clothes became torn we wore them torn; when they were wet we wore them until they dried. When our shoes wore out our feet got cut from walking barefoot.

The work day started at 5am. Some children made compost and the older ones dug ditches. We didn't get any food until halfway through the morning, when we had watery porridge and cassava leaves. Then we carried on working until it got dark. Sometimes we found potato leaves and lotus roots for extra food to eat in the evenings.

We were tired and hungry but told not to cry because the soldiers would kill us. Some children just died because they were starving or sick. We had to bury their bodies.

Hunger one day drove me to a nearby mango orchard before daylight to steal fruit. I climbed a tree when I heard people shouting and walking towards me. Khmer Rouge soldiers walked past with a group of men and women tied together with their arms behind their backs. The group went to a clearing and I watched while the soldiers shot each person in the head. For a long time I was too frightened to move.

In 1979, news filtered through that the Khmer Rouge had been defeated by the Vietnamese. My father walked for several days to Phnom Penh to find out whether it was safe to return. He came back two years later to take our family back to Phnom Penh. In 1981, I went back to primary school at the age of 17.

I am now 40. I am still frightened by men wearing black clothes. I am terrified by loud noises. My soup has to have a strong flavour or it reminds me of Khmer Rouge porridge. I eat too much because I am afraid that food may run out.

* Chris Leather worked in Cambodia from 2004 to 2008, including two years with Sony Lay.