Boeung Kak lake

A TOTAL of 18 families living in 12 houses in the Boeung Kak lake area’s Village 23 have been ordered to evacuate their homes by Thursday next week to make way for a road-expansion project, the governor of Toul Kork district said yesterday.

Seng Ratanak said the residents had been informed of the eviction on Saturday, and that each family would be compensated with 1 million riels (about US$236) and a 5-by-12-metre plot of land in Dangkor district’s Kork Ksach village.

“We decided to move these people from Village 23 to the new location because they are illegally living on state land in Phnom Penh and now the authority needs this land,” he said, and added that the road expansion would ease traffic congestion in the area.

Mey Chanthan, a 59-year-old resident, said her family had been living in Village 23 since 1979, and that the compensation offered to affected families was inadequate.

“I think this offering is very little for me and I can not use it to build a house for my family,” she said.