LICADHO once more calls upon the government and the 7NG company to urgently ensure adequate compensation for all the families who were brutally evicted from Dey Krahorm on January 24.

LICADHO is deeply concerned that 7NG continues to refuse to provide cash compensation to an estimated 144 evicted house owners, insisting that instead it will only provide some (and not all) of them with apartments at the Damnak Trayeoung relocation site outside of Phnom Penh city. 7NG has imposed a deadline of January 31 for 85 of the house owners to register to accept apartments or they will receive nothing at all.

"7NG needs to get serious about providing adequate compensation to these evicted home owners, instead of imposing arbitrary deadlines and issuing threats that these people will receive nothing," said LICADHO director Naly Pilorge. "It is long overdue that 7NG starts to do the right thing, instead of continuing its thuggish behavior.

"Forcing people under duress to accept apartments they do not want, because they cannot earn an income and secure their children’s future if they live so far away from town, is no solution at all. What these people need and are asking for is financial compensation instead.”

Hopeless at the prospect of getting fair compensation from the company following the eviction, the home owners are now asking for only $20,000 per house - the last offer that 7NG made to them but which it now refuses to give.

"These people have lost homes and land worth $3,000 to $5,000 per square meter, at market rates, at Dey Krahorm - the very least the company can do now is to pay a fraction of that to them in compensation for the loss of their homes," said Pilorge.

As well as the house owners, LICADHO is also concerned by 7NG's treatment of former market stall-holders at Dey Krahorm and house renters there, who were also evicted. As compensation for the loss of their livlihoods, 7NG is offering some of the former market stall-holders a one square meter piece of land at the market in Damnak Trayeung. Again, the company is demanding that they accept this by January 31 or receive nothing. For house renters, the company has said that it will not provide them with any compensation, and is demanding that they leave the relocation site where they are currently camped.

“The market stall-holders from Dey Krahorm are not being offered fair compensation at all - giving them one square meter is simply absurd,” said Naly Pilorge. “The 7NG company and the government should negotiate with the market families to provide a reasonable solution for them.”

LICADHO also urges the government to ensure that adequate alternative housing is available for the house renters who were evicted from Dey Krahorm.

“The government is responsible for ensuring that the renters, who were the poorest of the poor at Dey Krahorm, have adequate housing,” said Pilorge. “These people are particularly vulnerable because they need to be in the inner city to find work but, because of repeated evictions by the government, there are fewer and fewer places where they can find low-cost rental housing.”

LICADHO also urges the government and 7NG to immediately ensure that the humanitarian needs of more than 1,200 market stall-holders and renters camped in the open on 7NG land at Damnak Trayeung are urgently met. According to a survey by NGOs, there are at least 335 families, comprising 1,238 people, camped there. They include 488 children, 16 pregnant women and 19 women who are breastfeeding babies.

Conditions at the site are extremely poor, with inadequate food, water, toilets and medical services. Many families do not have even a tarpaulin to protect themselves from the elements.

“The government and 7NG chose to dump these people on this site, so they are responsible for ensuring that their essential needs are met until adequate compensation and alternative housing is provided to them,” said Pilorge. “If the government and company does not, they are directly jeopardising the health and welfare of these men, women and children.”

LICADHO is concerned that 7NG and authorities may be planning a further eviction of the renters and market stall-holders from the relocation site in the near future.

"These people have already been traumatized by being thrown out of their homes and market stalls at Dey Krahorm, and many suffered property damage or physical injury,"

PDF: Download full statement in English - Download full statement in Khmer