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Cambodia: Killing fields where victims were killed and then tossed into pits and the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center Memorial Stupa, south of Phnom Penh

About 12 km (7½ miles) south of Phnom Penh lie the infamous Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Here victims of the Khmer Rouge, including many from Tuol Sleng, were taken for execution and burial in mass graves. Many of these have now been exhumed, and a stupa-shaped mausoleum has been erected to their memory.

The Khmer Rouge, or Communist Party of Kampuchea, ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan. It is remembered primarily for its brutality and policy of social engineering which resulted in millions of deaths. Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the deaths of thousands from treatable diseases (such as malaria). Brutal and arbitrary executions and torture carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during purges of its own ranks between 1976 and 1978, are considered to have constituted a genocide. Several former Khmer Rouge cadres are currently on trial for war crimes in Phnom Penh.