9 January 2009: After the two cousins were brutally assaulted and killed, girls in the village no longer leave their home.
(Photo: The sister of Phal Sophoeun, with her brother, holds up the only picture of the slain 14-year-old. 8 January 2009. By Isabelle Roughol)
By Isabelle Roughol and Neou Vannarin
Svay Sar commune, Pursat Province – Phal Sokhoeun, 27, was careful about the safety of her 14-year-old sister, Phal Sophoeun. She did not send her to the fields or to herd the cows after school, like so many other girls in Krakor district’s Boeng Smuk village. Phal Sophoeun was a quiet, gentle fifth grader, who walked straight home from Koh Kandal Primary School to watch her infant nephew. She never strayed far from the village.
“I was very careful and still it happened,” Phal Sokhoeun said of the rape and murder of her little sister, whom she’d raised for the past 11 years, after their mother died and father abandoned them.
Phal Sophoeun had been missing since Monday afternoon, along with her cousin Nai Vinn, 11, a second grader in the same school. Friends and relatives started searching in the fields, thinking the two might have got lost on their way home. Huot Nai, 37, Nai Vinn’s father, traveled to two neighboring villages in search of the girls.
On Tuesday afternoon, Phal Chantha, 19, Phal Sophoeun’s brother, saw a spot of color on the forested mountain towering over the field where he was standing. He gathered a group of 10 men to investigate. About 5 km into the forest, they found the two girls hanging from the same branch of a tree, about 2 meters from the ground.
The cousins had been raped, beaten up and strangled to death. Both had bled from their vaginas. Nai Vinn had bruises all over her body, both legs were broken and her eyeballs had been poked in. Phal Sophoeun had a broken leg and her neck was broken in so many places that “her head could move in any direction,” Phal Sokhoeun said.
The girls’ bodies were cremated Wednesday. Police suspect more than one perpetrator was involved but have made no arrest.
“It’s difficult to identify the suspects because the house is very far from the police office and it’s isolated from the village. And when we asked the people, they seemed to know nothing about potential suspects,” said Soeun Sopheak, provincial penal police chief.
The investigation is also difficult because police arrived at the isolated village at nighttime Tuesday, more than 24 hours after the crime, he said. Local police will continue investigating the case, he added.
On the way to the girls’ neighboring homes, roads of red earth get smaller and smaller until only a narrow footpath through yards and fields leads to three houses. Here, each home has lost a daughter.
Three years ago, the Phans’ neighbor, Thon Than, 20, left one morning carrying fertilizer to the family farm. She was later found raped, beaten up and strangled to death. No arrest was ever made.
“I believe in the law. If [police] could not find out, I don’t have any idea what to do,” said Long Khun, 60, proudly displaying a framed portrait of Thon Than, the niece she raised after her parents’ death.
Though Thon Than was not found hung up, the cases are cruel and similar enough to send a chill through Svay Sar commune. Many parents interviewed, including in the commune town 10 km away, said they were afraid for their children and would not let them get away from the house or school.
In Boeng Smuk village, Un Tae, 50, won’t let his twin daughters, 20, go to the fields or tend the cows anymore. He and his three sons have taken on the women’s jobs so they can stay close to home.
“I might stay at home forever,” said Tay Savuth, one of the twins, who added she was terrified.
The village of 278 families is usually peaceful, without any gangs, and everyone here is a friend or a relative, Phal Sokhoeun said. She couldn’t think of anyone who could have raped and murdered the girls.
But while he doesn’t have any suspect, the village chief, Kin Ngas, 62, is looking at his constituents differently now.
“The crab that cuts the rice in the rice field is the crab in the rice field,” he said, suggesting the killers were locals.
He’s advising that children stay as close to home as possible and that women travel in groups of at least three and let their families know where they are going.
Contacted Thursday, Minister of Women’s Affairs Ing Kantha Phavi said she wouldn’t speak over the phone to a journalist she doesn’t know.
“We have a policy [to prevent violence against women]. We’ve implemented it for five years already,” she said before hanging up.
At press time, Ellen Minotti of Social Services of Cambodia, had not returned a call for comment. The Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center and Cambodian Social Development could not be reached for comment.
