A Cambodian man's joy turned to dismay after learning from his long-lost mother, who had survived the bloody Khmer Rouge regime, that his wife was also his sister.
Tep Song, 35, and his wife Tep Ly, 38, had been removed from their village in the southern province of Svay Rieng and separated by Khmer Rouge troops in 1975 when they were five and eight, respectively.
The pair told aid workers that they met again when Song was 17 and extremely ill in hospital in neighboring Takeo province. Ty was assigned as his nurse, and they fell in love and married soon afterwards, unaware that they had any more in common than having been born in the same province.
The couple had believed that the rest of their families had been wiped out. But Song, an itinerant worker, saved everything they had to make a trip to his home village to search for any surviving family -- where he discovered his mother, Thit Sohn, 77.
"At first, of course, they were overjoyed, but then the son and mother began naming other relatives who had been murdered," Prom Bopha of the Collect Safe of People (CSP) aid agency told DPA.
"Ly was surprised, and told them these were also her relatives' names, and then they discovered they shared the same childhood memories, and before long they realized that they had the same father and mother," said Prom Bopha, whose group is caring for the family.
"It should have been a time of great joy, but now the mother cries all day and all night," Prom Bopha said. "They are surprised and very upset and all three are now very ill."
The couple has four children, aged between 14 years and 14 months.
The ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.
Up to 2 million Cambodians died during the regime's drive to turn the nation into an agrarian utopia, free of class systems, markets and money.
The regime emptied the cities and often removed children from parents to more easily indoctrinate them.
Thousands of Cambodians are still searching for their family members.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS