The following is an excerpt from the original Reuters report. Read the full piece on Reuters →
CHNOK TRU, Cambodia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Troung Van Long is Vietnamese in name only. He was born in Cambodia and has lived there for decades, including many years in a floating house on the Tonle Sap Lake where he still lives.
But his days on the water are numbered.
Citing concerns over pollution and overfishing last year, Cambodian authorities have moved hundreds of ethnic Vietnamese families in the central province of Kampong Chhnang to land.
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Why we're sharing this.
This Reuters report puts a name and a face on a policy that often gets reduced to numbers. Troung Van Long is not a statistic. He is a man who was born in Cambodia, has lived there for decades, and is now being told the only home he has ever known is no longer his to keep.
His story is the story of thousands. Vietnamese in name only — born on the water, raised on the water, surviving on the water — and now, without warning or consent, told the water belongs to someone else.
The land they are being moved to does not feel like home. The water they came from was not given back to them. They are caught in between — and the children IHM serves are growing up in that in-between.