Khao-I-Dang, Thailand

The Thai border camp where Cambodians who survived the Khmer Rouge waited for a new life.

After the killing fields

When Vietnamese forces drove the Khmer Rouge from power in early 1979, hundreds of thousands of starving Cambodians fled toward Thailand. In late 1979, the UN refugee agency opened Khao-I-Dang a few miles from the border.

A temporary city

Within months, Khao-I-Dang held well over one hundred thousand people, making it for a time one of the largest Cambodian communities anywhere. Many Cambodian Americans began their journey to the United States there. The camp closed in the early 1990s.

Connected stories

Sichan Siv escaped Cambodia earlier, in 1976, and taught English in a Thai refugee camp before his resettlement.