While it lasts: Children playing next to a construction site of the Funan Techo canal along the Prek Takeo channel in Kandal province. — AFP
Food stand owner Dem Mech wells up as he sits in the yard of the home he will lose if Cambodia proceeds with a massive new canal running from the Mekong river to the sea.
“I won’t challenge the government, but what I want is decent compensation,” the wiry 57-year-old said, seated in the shade of the house he shares with eight relatives.
“We don’t have any official information. We have only heard about it from social media.”
Mech is one of thousands of Cambodians living along the projected route of the US$1.7bil (RM7.93bil) Funan Techo canal – an ambitious infrastructure project the government says will offer vast economic benefits.
The waterway will run 180km from the Mekong to the Gulf of Thailand, travelling part of the way along the Bassac river.
It will offer an alternative for container ships that currently cross into Vietnam before heading to the sea, and allow Cambodia to keep transport revenue in-country.
The government plans riverside economic zones along the route that it says could create tens of thousands of jobs.
That could be a key boost for an economy struggling to recover its pre-pandemic growth rate.
But it is little consolation to Mech.
“If the compensation is tiny, I will move out with tears,” he said.
“There is nothing we can do but cry. The villagers cannot stand up against them.”
His sentiments are echoed along the projected canal route, where the excavation rattles the homes of those who live there.
Sok Rom, a 56-year-old widow, said she struggles to sleep with worry about where she will go.
“I feel empty inside. We are losing the place where we lived in happiness.” — AFP
