This article was originally published on HaRDstories.
The red spray paint appeared without warning on houses across Canal 94, a Cambodian community named after the irrigation and lake system that has sustained it for generations. Authorities told families that the markings were for a census. But residents knew better.
Two years later, the lake that supported 400 families has been fenced off and filled with sand, cleared for 80,000 USD shophouses rising around Cambodia’s new international airport. Chan Thorn, who once made a decent living off these waters, now depends on her daughter’s factory wages.
“They’ve taken it all over, and we can’t get anything. So we need to buy fish from others,” the 60-year-old fisherwoman said. “Even just collecting water spinach, they don’t want to let us go in.”
When the lakes were theirs
When Thorn arrived at Kandal province’s Canal 94 community in 1990, she saw opportunity in the lake and canal system outside Phnom Penh. From fishing, farming and catching freshwater snails and clams, she could support her family until developers began transforming the countryside around the capital’s new airport development.
Canal 94 residents have lived in this rural area for several decades, some tracing their claims back even further. Sem Meas, a 57-year-old farmer and fisher, has lived here since 1990, when she married into a family that had been there since the Khmer Rouge regime ended in 1979.
Meas said their land claims had never been questioned until the past two years, after the government began promoting the Techo International Airport. The development covers 2,600 hectares across Kandal and Takeo provinces.
Opened on 9 September, it sits about 25 kilometres outside Phnom Penh, surrounded by rice fields that are rapidly transforming. Mountains of construction sand now fill the landscape, alongside posters promising modern shophouses and multi-storey “borey” – the gated communities popular among Cambodia’s middle class.
Canal 94 is no gated community. Houses here are built of weathered concrete or plywood structures with corrugated metal roofs that leak during monsoon season. Each house sits beside a canal or lake. Most families earn their income from fishing, catching clams or snails, and tending plants near the water. Wells provide communal water, solar panels supply electricity, and charity-donated filters provide drinking water.
Life here used to be simpler, Meas said. She could rely on the land and lake to support her family, even if income was modest. But as Kandal Steung district modernises, residents have increasingly taken jobs in garment factories and construction sites.
“Before, we didn’t buy food or vegetables. We could find food, we could grow vegetables like cucumbers and bitter gourds, but now we can’t,” she said.
The red markings
Canal 94 sits nine kilometres north of the airport site and was initially unaffected when construction began in 2018. Residents across Kandal Steung district had protested, citing lack of transparency over evictions and compensation. But as developer Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) neared completion last year, other construction projects crept closer.
That’s when the red spray paint appeared.
In late 2022, airport staff and local authorities marked villagers’ houses with numbers. Officials called it census work and flood prevention. Residents saw it as a warning: they were being marked for eviction. They began demanding compensation and official land titles to be recognised for their decades of residence.
The situation escalated in 2023 when construction workers began filling the lakes and canals with sand, cutting off residents’ fishing grounds.
An Sokhui usually casts nets from his boat across the lake, but he said an unknown company now controls access.
“[The lake] is completely fenced off,” he said. “I don’t even know the owner’s name! I only know that they’re Chinese. Now they hire guards to secure it. They don’t let us in at all.”
Sokhui and other residents say developers never introduced their projects or offered compensation. But billboards along the airport road suggest multiple developers are transforming the area: One advertisement for Terra TIA City by OCIC offers units from 80,000 USD, with a project map showing one of Canal 94’s fishing lakes within the development’s perimeter.
OCIC representatives could not be reached for comment. A Terra TIA City sales representative hung up when asked about the lake access restrictions.
No titles, no rights
Since late 2022, Canal 94 residents have petitioned and protested, seeking information and recognition for their long residence in the district. A key part of their protest involves obtaining land titles that reflect their current homes.
Meas, like others in the community, never received land titles because local officials never facilitated claims. Cambodia’s land titling system collapsed during the Khmer Rouge genocide from 1975 to 1979, which involved mass displacements. Subsequent government campaigns to retitle land have had mixed results.
Civilians might hold “soft titles” from local authorities or “hard titles” registered nationally. But across Cambodia, low-income rural residents have been blocked by bureaucracy, costs, or like Canal 94 residents, completely overlooked.
Cambodia’s land law should protect Canal 94 residents who can prove occupation since the mid-1990s. Residents say they’ve voted in every election since 1993 – sufficient proof of residence.
But Kandal Steung district governor Ouch Sao Voeun disputes their claims, saying residents always lived on state land.
“When it is state public land, it cannot become the property of any party,” he said. “What action to take is up to the state because it’s not private land.”
The national government’s State Land Management Committee classified Canal 94 as state public land because of the water bodies, Sao Voeun said. Yet dozens of properties within Phnom Penh’s Boeng Tamok lake have been converted to private land and granted to individuals, HaRDstories previously found.
With property rights unrecognised and futures uncertain, residents continue protesting through petitions to government offices and demonstrations in Kandal’s capital of Takhmao city and Phnom Penh.
An Srey, whose family claims date to 1991, said sand filling has created flooding that destroys property and deepens economic hardship.
“We’ve been here for years, but nothing has happened,” she said. “Until they came to do [development projects], and when the water came, the houses were destroyed. That’s how difficult it is for the poor to live a simple life. [The developers] do whatever they want, and it’s alright for them.”
Dreams of city life
Residents say the airport developments have left them trapped: they don’t know if they’ll be evicted, but they lack money for the modern housing replacing their community.
Sokhui, a 54-year-old fisherman, once earned 100,000 to 200,000 riels (25-50 USD) daily from fishing. Now he makes 20,000 riel (5 USD) on good days. Most other fishers have taken factory or construction jobs since losing lake access.
San Sothida, a pregnant mother of four, now pays 100 USD annually to rent land she once used freely for growing lotus. She’s lost 20,000 USD across three recent harvests due to low rice prices and increased fertiliser costs.
“Since the airport was built, both big and small-level people started measuring and dividing the land,” she said. “It all has its own owners.”
Nhel Sokny, a 39-year-old farmer, fears leaving despite harsh conditions and flooding. She’s noticed authorities typically relocate evicted families far from job opportunities.
“We are having a hard time, but I’m afraid that if we leave this place, it will be even harder,” she said. “They would never send us to a place with an established market or a town. They send us to a remote area.”
Am Sam Ath, operations director for human rights NGO Licadho, said authorities should treat residents with dignity and provide compensation, regardless of land ownership disputes. Land loss creates cascading problems for low-income communities that are difficult to recover from.
“When there is no specific information, no specific solution, citizens live in fear,” he said. “When they are afraid, their lives and jobs are affected, and they dare not go anywhere for fear of eviction.”
Back at Canal 94, Meas, the mother of the garment factory worker, dreams of providing a modern life for her daughter whilst refusing to abandon four decades of investment in this land.
“I want to adapt like city dwellers,” she told HaRDstories. “I don’t want to live with mud anymore.”
But she added: “This place can support our livelihood. And if [the government] wants us to move to another place, we ask not to go far, but to move to a place close by. Will they help the people or not?”
Edited by Danielle Keeton-Olsen and Fabian Drahmoune
Phon Sothyroth is a Phnom Penh-based freelance journalist dedicated to reporting on human, land, environmental, and labor rights. She is a primary contributor to CamboJA News, one of Cambodia’s last independent media outlets.
Roun Ry is a Phnom Penh-based freelance photographer focusing on environmental and social issues, and human stories.