Land

Vietnam and China lead the pack of foreign companies granted economic land concessions in Cambodia for agro-industrial development by a wide margin, new data released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries show. According to the ministry’s annual report, released last month, since 1993 the ...

Representatives for the hundreds of families facing eviction from homes around Phnom Penh International Airport have agreed to let the compliance ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank, mediate a solution to the land dispute with the ...

Five families from Oddar Meanchey province’s Samraong district have filed a complaint with district authorities and rights group Adhoc in a bid to reclaim more than 16 hectares of land they allege was sold to other villagers by their village chief without their permission. Adhoc provincial ...

Lawmakers-elect from the Cambodia National Rescue Party are scheduled today to visit families in Koh Kong province affected by a long-running land dispute with Union Development Group, just weeks after the company destroyed dozens of homes there. Rights groups say that Chinese-owned Union Development has burned ...

Two children were killed by the explosion of an unfired rifle shell in a rice field in Battambang province on Friday afternoon, a district police officer said. Captain Phong Sarin, district deputy police chief, said that Roeun Rith, 7, and Mann Marin, 7, “saw an unexploded ...

The Court of Appeal on Friday overruled a decision by the Municipal Court ordering the company 7NG Group to provide a total of $195,000 in compensation to 13 families whose houses were destroyed during the violent eviction of the Dey Krahorm community in 2009. “The Court ...

Borei Keila residents on Thursday cast a symbolic curse on the people they say are responsible for making their lives a misery since violently evicting them from their homes two years ago. In the latest development in the long-running dispute, security guards and riot police last ...

The bodies of a 39-year-old woman and her 18-month-old nephew were recovered Thursday two days after a riverbank collapse caused their home in Kandal Province’s Khsach Kandal district to plunge into the Mekong River while they slept, but the woman’s 3-year-old son has not yet ...

Construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project in southern Laos is likely to decimate an already dwindling population of critically endangered Mekong dolphins, according to a World Wildlife Fund science brief published today. About 85 dolphins inhabit a deep-water pool restricted to a stretch of the ...

A 39-year-old woman and two young children are missing and presumed dead after their home in Preah Prasap commune collapsed into the Mekong River on Tuesday night, a tragedy villagers are blaming on illegal sand dredging of the riverbed. Four other people were injured as a ...

Several dozen families in Banteay Meanchey province involved in land dispute were given 100 hectares of replacement land in O’Chrou district yesterday, but have refused to accept it because it is already claimed by more than 230 other families, two village chiefs said. The provincial government ...

Twelve Preah Vihear villagers were called to court this week regarding an ongoing land dispute they claim has resulted in the bulldozing of their family land and livelihood. The villagers are among some 67 families in Kulen district’s Srayong Cheung village who say the government sold ...

The Forestry Administration in Kampot province on Tuesday confiscated about 2 cubic meters of illegal timber from a truck in Toek Chhou district’s Stung Keo commune, officials said. The bust is at least the third in a week, with forestry officials confiscating 200 pieces of illegal ...

Forty villagers on Tuesday were forcibly removed from outside the Pursat provincial office, where they have been camping for the past five days to protest what they say was the burning down of their homes by district officials, villagers and a rights group said. “This morning, ...

In the latest case involving illegal logging in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district, two indigenous communities filed a lawsuit against three unidentified illegal loggers after confiscating a truck laden with luxury wood on Saturday, a rights monitor and villagers said yesterday. About 50 villagers turned over the ...

The World Bank says it will investigate reports from indigenous groups in Cambodia that a company funded by the bank’s International Finance Corporation is involved in deforestation and land grabs. The bank’s Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman, or CAO, will first examine the credibility of ...

Two residents of the Borei Keila community remained hospitalized Sunday after a Valentine’s Day clash with authorities on Friday that left 19 people injured, a community representative said. Although most of the 19 were only slightly injured, two women were more severely hurt and are still ...

The Forestry Administration in Preah Vihear province on Saturday raided a remote cabin in Choam Ksan district where they found 200 pieces of illegally felled luxury wood, police said Sunday. The 15 cubic meters of wood uncovered included the Thnong, Beng and Neang Noun varieties, and ...

A brigadier general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) whose home and rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province were raided by police last week claimed Sunday that the authorities had apologized to him after he threatened them with a lawsuit. Police had raided Brigadier General Chhit ...

More than 30 families continued to demonstrate in Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district on Friday and Saturday over what they say is the illegal clearing of land by a Chinese company, villagers said Sunday. The families accuse Rui Feng (Cambodia) International of clearing 500 hectares of ...

At least six people were injured on Friday when a small group of Borei Keila villagers were evicted from the grounds of an unfinished building in Phnom Penh that they began occupying this week in a bid to draw attention to a years-long fight for ...

A group of eight villagers from Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces facing displacement by the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam lodged a petition Thursday with the Chinese Embassy and three ministries demanding that the developer negotiate with them. “The affected families have never been ...

Police and military police in Kratie province’s Snuol district on Wednesday burned to the ground 56 homes they said were on protected land, causing displaced villagers to block National Road 76 in protest for four hours, officials said. Snuol district Governor Kong Kimny said Thursday that ...

Scores of families in Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila community tore down a corrugated metal fence and took up temporary residence in developer Phan Imex’s unfinished Building 9 as anger over smaller-than-promised relocation plots boiled over yesterday morning. The occupation began after local and municipal authorities came ...