SOPHAN Sovany
Pseudonym: TCCP-149
Cases: Case 002/01
Category: Civil Party
First phase of evacuations
Sophan Sovany recalled hearing an announcement, on 17 April 1975, instructing people to abandon their homes due to an imminent attack to Phnom Penh.
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During the evacuation, roads were packed with people and she saw several dead bodies along the way.
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People asked about the whereabouts of their family members.
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She saw one person begging to return to find their relatives, but the Khmer Rouge soldiers did not allow it.
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Sophan Sovany and her family walked for 15 days after crossing the Praek Kdam river.
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They stopped to rest in an empty pagoda, where they were discovered by soldiers who ordered them to pull rice seedlings.
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They did not know how to do manual labour, and were going to be killed for being of a “capitalist nature.”
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A local man helped them flee the village.
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They arrived at a village that could not take them in because they were “17 April people,” and were advised to go to Roka Kaong village
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in Kandal Province.
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Second phase of evacuations
Shortly after arriving at Roka Kaong, Sophan Sovany and her family were once again displaced.
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She heard an announcement that “New People” in the village would be transferred to work in rice fields in Pursat and Battambang provinces.
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People were told there would be plenty of rice in Pursat and Battambang provinces, and that they would be able to feed themselves.
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Neither Sophan Sovany nor her parents believed that to be true, but that they had no choice but to accept orders given by Angkar.
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People were transported from the village in motorboat by armed guards.
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Children were crying on the boat because they were hungry, and Khmer Rouge soldiers threatened to throw them overboard.
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After exiting the boat, people were loaded on to trucks that took them to the railway station,
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where Khmer Rouge soldiers ordered them to board trains.
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People were pushed into the wagons which were then barred with pieces of wood.
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During stops, they drank whatever water they could find, regardless of whether it was contaminated or not.
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On the trains, people were not allowed to relieve themselves.
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Sophan Sovany was among a group of women who were ordered by Khmer Rouge soldiers to get off the train to defecate and that were too frightened to do so as they were being held under gunpoint.
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The Trial Chamber relied on the testimonies of Sophan Sovany and other civil parties to describe the experiences of those who were forcibly displaced from the cities to the countryside, specifically to Battambang and Pursat provinces in the Northwest Zone.
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Conditions at cooperatives
Sophan Sovany and her family were taken to Pou Pir cooperative.
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The cooperative was not equipped for farming, so they had to clear the bushes, and build huts to take shelter.
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At the cooperative, Sophan Sovany’s family members were allocated different workplaces.
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This brutal separation was the tragedy of their lives.
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While away, she was told that her father was sick and receiving treatment at Kandieng hospital.
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She was not allowed to take leave to visit her father, so she decided to escape.
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However, when she arrived at the hospital, her father had already died.
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Shortly after that, many of her relatives also died due to disease and starvation.
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Sophan Sovany was later assigned to dig a canal at the Damnak Chheu Kram cooperative.
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At this cooperative, she witnessed harrowing events. She saw a young woman being killed after being caught hiding a piece of jewellery.
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The woman’s body was not fully buried, as to deter people at the cooperative from committing infractions.
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She witnessed one woman being beaten to death for having a potato.
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She also saw a pregnant woman being unclothed and beaten to death with a hoe.
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Later a soldier used a knife to open the woman’s abdomen.
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A unit chief was given a quota of work that she was unable to complete because of a sprained ankle, and that evening, the woman was killed and buried in a pit that she dug up herself during the day.
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Statement of Suffering
What I would like to inform the Court is that my life has been miserable and unfortunate. I have lost my parents. I have lost my father. From time to time I had to escape from one place to another particularly to visit my parents. And I heard that they were being sick, so I risked my life to flee in order to visit them. But unfortunately they were all dead. My mother ate a wild morning glory known as "trakuon tek" and she got diarrhoea after eating it. And the situation - her condition got worse until she was dead because of this disease. I have lost all my relatives, my siblings, and my parents. I have nothing more left. I have endured all the miserable things in my life. My difficulty, my misery cannot be put in words, it is indescribable.
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