The stark remains of a building in Kampong Speu, the regional capital of the Cambodian province ...

The stark remains of a building in Kampong Speu, the regional capital of the Cambodian province of Kampong Speu, located on the main road from Phnom Penh to the south west port of Kompong Som. Graffiti has been scratched in charcoal into the remaining walls which rise over fragments of the original concrete floor. Children play around the cluster of dwellings sitting behind the ruins, the roofs of which are tiled with terracotta tiles, while a pig scavenges in the grounds in front of the houses. These ruins stand in testimony to America's clandestine B-52 bombing campaign of the late 1960s and early 1970s against Cambodia, which targeted the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong bases in eastern Cambodia and their supply lines running east from Kompong Som to South Vietnam. The US bombing campaign shattered Cambodia's social, economic and farming infrastructure and killed an estimated 150,000 civilians. The Americans dropped over half a million tonnes of bombs and indiscriminately seeded anti-personnel mines which are still claiming victims throughout Cambodia's southern provinces.