Evictees’ plea

Families evicted from their homes by the rehabilitation of Phnom Penh’s stretch of the national railway said they had filed their second petition in two weeks to the Asia Development Bank yesterday, seeking help to improve living conditions at their resettlement site.

Ros Bopha, representative of the 160 families forced to relocate to Por Senchey district’s Trapaing Anchang village, said the letter made the same basic requests as the one delivered last Monday, which called for more compen-sation and infrastructure development at their relocation site.

The villagers were relocated from Tuol Sangke and Kilometre 6 communes in Russei Keo district on March 6 by a US$143 million rail rehabilitation project funded partly by the ADB.

A spokesman for the ADB said it had received the villagers’ first petition last Monday but had not yet received the second. “We are providing a reply to the first letter this week in close consultation with the IRC [Inter-ministerial Resettlement Committee], who are fully aware of the situation and are taking action,” the spokesman said yesterday.