The traditional Khmer New Year will take place next month. While a time of joy and celebration for all, April is also a time to reflect on the tragic events of April 1975, when the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh.

Under the false pretence of a possible air raid, they forcibly evicted every resident of the crowded capital. Some were taken away on trucks and trains, or used their personal vehicles and bicycles to obey the order, although the vast majority fled on foot.

No exceptions were made, with even the desperately ill and injured forced to leave their hospital beds and walk or crawl out of the city as best they could.

To remember the emptying of a once-vibrant city – an event which foreshadowed the terrible events of the so-called Democratic Kampuchea regime – the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) is conducting a series of genocide and democracy lectures along railway lines in Phnom Penh, Pursat and Banteay Meanchey provinces.

With eight five-day tours scheduled to run from March 23 until April 12, the tours will see parties of students from across the Kingdom journey from Phnom Penh and hear first-hand accounts of the Cambodia’s tragic past, according to Long Dany, one of the tour organisers. 

The tours will focus on the evacuation, as well as the forced transfers that took place under the Khmer Rouge, during the 1975-1979 period.

Khmer Rouge researcher Chhang Youk, who serves as executive director of DC-Cam, said the tours were designed to enable participants to share Khmer Rouge survivor’s experience of forced transfer by train.

He said it seeks to increase awareness of the uncollected or unpublished oral histories of the survivors.

“The tours will also provide an opportunity to youth to be exposed to railways and travel by train, in order to promote democratic participation,” he added.

Youk was personally transferred by train in 1975, initially to Takeo province. Later on, he was forced aboard a train crowded with passengers, including one of his sisters, who had a young daughter.

He hoped that he would be returned to Phnom Penh, as the Khmer Rouge had told him he would be, but he was eventually removed from the railcar in Pursat province, along with many other passengers. His sister was not among them.

The rest of the passengers continued until they reached Battambang province.

“My family became separated, and we entered a new life of starvation, hard labour and genocide. I feel fortunate to have survived this horrific period,” he said.

“Many family members, including my sister’s baby daughter and my uncle, did not survive,” he added.

Between 1.5 and 2 million people are estimated to have been killed during the Khmer Rouge regime, through mass executions, starvation and labour camps, according to the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge tribunal. The government estimates the number at around 3 million.