At the training weekend we attended to prepare for our mission to Cambodia we asked one of the trainers if they had any insights into the Cambodian people to help us in our ministry to them. We were simply told; “Go to the Killing Fields.”

Due to the political unrest in Phnom Penh and busyness of our ministry there we didn’t manage to get to the Killing Fields until the last week of our time in Cambodia. Nothing could have prepared us for this visit. What we saw and heard while there was disturbing.

The Killing Fields known as Choeung Ek are about 15
km southwest of Phnom Penh. Once a Chinese burial ground, the Killing Fields, one of many such places in Cambodia, is where upwards of 20,000 people died. Load after load of people were brought here from Toul Sleng Prison to be executed.

To save the cost of bullets prisoners were bludgeoned to death with one of a selection of implements and then thrown into mass graves. Men, women, children and infants were killed here, even members of the Khmer Rouge who were suspected of being traitors of the regime.

As we walked around the Killing Fields we could see lying in the soil fragments of bone and teeth. These are collected up with the many bones of those once
buried here and put on display to honour those who died here and as reminder those left of what
happened here.

We left this place hoping we’d never have to see something like this ever again.