By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Police have been called in to guard a reservoir in Cambodia after treasure-hunters began searching for bounty hidden during the Khmer Rouge era, local media reported Wednesday.
The Kamping Puoy reservoir in the northwestern province of Battambang is a popular site with picnickers but was constructed by slave labor during the Khmer Rouge’s bloody rule from 1975 to 1979.
The Cambodia Daily newspaper reported that last week people were seen digging near the reservoir, which was built to irrigate the surrounding countryside.
It has been suggested as the possible site of treasure buried during the Khmer Rouge period, when victims of the regime sometimes hid valuables in the hope of returning to collect them later.
On October 22, a suspicious group of people were reported to the police after they were seen loitering at the site and a half-meter-deep hole was later discovered, the newspaper reported.
Deputy Provincial Police Chief Chet Vanny said 10 officers had been deployed to keep watch and prevent "bad people" from carrying out excavations.
Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, told Anadolu Agency that he was unaware of any particular trove at the site despite having been part of the forced labor that dug the reservoir.
"I worked at this site during the Khmer Rouge [period] and I have been back there for many times but I do not know about the treasure," he responded by email to enquiries.
Chhang said 20,000 mass graves had identified around the country, about 80 percent of which had been disturbed since the 1980s by people looking for the remains of loved ones, evidence for Khmer Rouge atrocities or scavenging victims’ belongings. The Khmer Rouge were responsible for the deaths of more than 2 million people, around a quarter of the country's population at the time.
He cited a case in Kompong Speu province where a former Khmer Rouge cadre began digging at a grave site and discovered gold, drawing others to dig.
Last year, six Vietnamese nationals were arrested in Battambang City after they unearthed an ammunition box filled with gold they had buried when they were stationed in Cambodia in the 1980s.
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