Wearing a krama (a traditional scarf) over her white robe, this woman is one of the nuns who have ...

Wearing a krama (a traditional scarf) over her white robe, this woman is one of the nuns who have helped to reestablish a religious community at the Turtle Wat (or temple) in an area just outside of Battambang which was renowned for being used as an execution site by the Khmer Rouge. A wat on the next hill was one of these sites and it still lies abandoned, as does a meditation cave nearby which was used to dump thousands of bodies. Buddhist monks and nuns were singled out for particularly brutal treatment during the 1976-1979 period of autogenocide for being 'incompatible with the revolution'. Tens of thousands were expelled from their wats (or temples) which were systematically destroyed and it is estimated that 50,000 died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. In 1981, about 5,000 monks were recorded as practicing in Cambodia, compared to over 100,000 recorded in 1969. The Khmer community is responding to the spiritual guidance offered by this order and the Turtle Wat is slowly becoming a centre of healing, especially after Theravada Buddhism was reinstituted as the state religion in 1989.