Thirty-two Vietnamese nationals were arrested during raids by immigration police in Phnom Penh’s Toul Kork district yesterday morning, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Keo Vanthorn.

“They live illegally, meaning that they don’t have passports. They have been sent to the Department of Immigration,” Vanthorn said.

Authorities have been cracking down on undocumented foreigners since the start of 2015.

Vanthorn insisted Vietnamese were not being targeted. “We don’t discriminate against any race. We must implement the law for every foreigner who lives in Cambodia illegally,” he said, adding that 5,502 foreign nationals from 35 countries been deported since the start of the year, “most of them Vietnamese”.