K HMER Rouge guerrillas are said to be responsible for three separate atrocities in which a total of 55 villagers died and 12 were injured.

Eight KR soldiers slaughtered 40 villagers after taking them hostage while they were collecting bamboo beside a stream in Mongol Borei district, Battambang, Reasmey Kampuchea said on Oct 31.

The paper quoted from four survivors who escaped the Oct 22 massacre with gunshot wounds. A further two villagers survived the killing but subsequently went missing, Reasmey said.

The villagers had been marched off into a KR-controlled zone to a base camp. There all but the four women in the party had their hands bound and all were forced to walk another 4 km into the jungle.

At the killing ground the hostages were told to sit on the ground while the guerrillas took up positions at three different angles around them and opened fire with automatic weapons, the paper said.

In a second incident on Oct 19 gunmen said to be Khmer Rouge guerrillas killed eight Vietnamese, including four women and one child and wounded three others, including one Cambodian, in Charalay village, Chul Kiri district, Kompong Chhnang, Rasmei Kampuchea reported.

The guerrillas swooped on the village in ten boats and looted 4 million riel and a large amount of property during the bloody raid.

The third incident again occured on Oct 22, when two Vietnamese families in Kompong Chhnang were massacred.

The Vietnamese Embassy issued a statement condemning the Khmer Rouge for the attack but one witness said the gunmen were in government military uniforms entered the zone and shouted: "Are you Khmer or Vietnamese?" during the raid on Rathalay village, Roleas Prek district about 10 km norwest of Kompong Chhnang province.

The gunmen arrived in two boats, divided into small groups and went searching for Vietnamese in the floating houses in the area. They found two families and killed seven and wounded three of them, according to the Vietnamese Embassy.

Police made no comment on the incident but said they are investigating.