Cambodians Raped, Killed at UN-Backed Camp

Cambodians being held at a UN-funded internment camp are frequently beaten and raped, treatment that has resulted in at least three deaths. Guards at the “social affairs center” say its residents are free to leave when they choose—but human rights watchdogs and ex-inmates say Prey Speu is an “illegal, clandestine prison” for Camdobia’s “undesirables”: homeless people, prostitutes, and drug users, reports the Guardian.

A top UN office says detainees are “illegally confined and subject to a variety of abuses of power by the staff that included sub-humane conditions of detention, extortion, beating, rape, sometimes resulting in death and suicide.” Yet the facility is run by a department that gets funding from Unicef, the UN's children's fund. “Nothing has been done to hold these abusers to account,” says a human rights watchdog.
(More Cambodia stories.)