June 1992, UN peacekeepers were sent in to Cambodia. Their aim, to combat the Khmer Rouge destabilization efforts designed to prevent Cambodia's first free elections since the devastation of Pol Pot.
The Cambodian People's Armed Forces, Armee Nationale Sihanoukiste, and Khmer People's National Liberation Front participated in mobilisation exercises, which often lead to conflict and skirmishes with the Khmer Rouge.
Violent militia attacks, including bombings in Pnom Phen, were common.
The Cambodian capital had become a shell of its former self. Entire 'suburbs' abandoned, left derelict, reclaimed by the jungle, it's diminished population concentrated around a few small areas surrounding the heart of Pnom Pehn.
When i arrived in Cambodia during April 1993, the elections drawing closer, Cambodia's scorching sun, high humidity, and political heat was tipping the scale. Khmer Rouge had started to carry out a series of attacks on Vietnamese civilians and UN workers alike. By May 1993, these attacks had left 200 political workers killed or injured.
From the northern provinces, where Khmer Rouge troops still operated, loggers cut the teak desperately needed to rebuild the new homes of Pnom Pehn. Exposed vulnerable wooden boats navigated down the Mekong to where barefoot workers unload their cargo along the river banks of the nation's capital. Offering a window into the resilience of a people determined to rebuild.
Camera Canon AE1, 35mm SLR. E6 Fujichrome
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