Last remaining squatters in the Borei Keila slum again avoid eviction

Chan's young daughter is 20-years-old. Sitting on an old blanket to isolate her from the detritus of the demolition site, she tenderly pushes her precious baby's hamock, slung under the crumbling concrete skin of the derelict building.

16th of April 2012
Demotix
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Police Officers and district officials failed to evict the final inhabitants living in the Borei Keila slum in Phnom Penh. Strong opposition from the tent dwellers on the derelict site has thwarted the final demolition of the buildings.

Description:

Yesterday Police Officers and district officials failed to evict the final inhabitants from the Borei Keila slum in Phnom Penh. Strong opposition from the 'tent dwellers' on the site has thwarted the final demolition of the derelict buildings,which lie on a prime location in the centre of Cambodia's capital city.

Chan, one of the last remaining inhabitants lives in her 'lean to' home on the outer perimiter fence of the development site. In the daytime she sorts rubbish to sell to the recycling sites around the city. Her transport cart provides the makeshift wall to support the flimsy roof of her home and provide shade from the cruel midday sun.

Chan's young daughter is 20-years-old. She is certainly HIV positive. In the cruel midday heat she creeps under a narrow gap in site's green metal barrier fence to tend to her newborn baby. She rests under the derilict 1970's housing block which was home, until recently, for hundreds of Cambodian families living in abject poverty. Sitting on an old blanket to isolate her from the detritus of the demolition site, she tenderly pushes her precious baby's hamock, slung under the crumbling concrete skin of the building. Her husband left her when her baby was born without support.

The multi million dollar Phan Imex construction company has been clearing the Borei Keila site over the last few years and re-developing it for luxury homes, shops and offices. As part of a government brokered deal the company was contracted to build housing complexes on half of the plot for the evicted residents of the slum.

According to a Borei Keila 'squatter' interviewed by the Phnom Penh Post today, Phan Imex have only completed "8 out of 10 of promised housing structures." Apparently that's why the remaining inhabitants in their temporary tents are resisting the final eviction push.