Wed, May 21, 2003 - Page 5 News List

Forgotten amputees share hardships in community

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , VEAL THOM, CAMBODIA

Nov San, 49, a government soldier who lost both arms just below the shoulder when he was clearing mines in 1997, directs his 15-year-old daughter as she makes charcoal and plants rice and tomatoes.

Seour Sou, 42, who lost both legs fighting for a previous government in 1985, pushes himself through his field on a board with wheels, chopping at the hard earth with a hoe.

How long the amputees can keep this up is not clear.

"We are all sick," Touch Seour Ly said. "If we walk a lot it hurts. We have to saw wood sitting on the ground."

Sou Kouk, 47, sat shirtless and kneaded the stump of his left leg, unable to work. Like many young men in the 1980s, he was seized from his village by the government, thrown into the front lines and crippled almost immediately by a mine.

"I think something's wrong with a nerve," he said. "I don't have any money for doctors. I've got no one to help me but my wife."

Even if one of his four children is sick, he said, he cannot afford to transport them to a town for medical care. "We just stay at home and try to help them," he said.

Nevertheless, life is better here than it ever was in the world outside. He has a house now and for the first time a small field to plant.

What means the most to him, he said, is that he feels like a man again. He is as good as anybody else here. When he hobbles past, no one shouts at him, "Hey, cripple, get a job."

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