CHOEUNG EK MEMORIAL
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Phnom Penh site featuring a stupa containing 5,000 skulls, paying tribute to the victims of executions.
After S21's visit, it is recommended to visit the "Killing Fields", where executions of prisoners of minor importance took place. Nearly 9,000 bodies were found in mass graves, sometimes containing less than a dozen bodies, sometimes more than a hundred. The executions took place in the evening, under the direction of the camp's number 2, sometimes under the direct supervision of Douch, who witnessed the murders of hundreds of people while quietly smoking a cigar, sitting on a bamboo mat. Before being driven there, S21 inmates believed they were being transferred to another prison. To save bullets, they were shot with shovels or iron bars before being thrown into mass graves. To cover the smell and finish off any survivors, corrosive chemicals were spilled there: neighbouring villages should not suspect the industrial massacre that was taking place a few hundred metres from their homes. The executioners were generally young illiterate teenagers, trained especially for Douch: he only surrounded himself with young boys, more malleable according to him. Until a few years ago, bones were scattered all over the place in the open air, and it was not uncommon to trip over a femur protruding from the ground; a stupa containing 5,000 skulls found on the spot was erected in memory of the victims. Nearly 300 execution and mass grave sites have been counted throughout Cambodia.
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