On our travels through Asia we visited the Tuol Sleng.
I was in two minds on whether to post these or not but this is part of the Cambodian history and as much as some of the areas are pretty brutal, i feel more folk need to know about this.
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The site is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge communist regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Tuol Sleng (Khmer) means “Hill of the Poisonous Trees” or “Strychnine Hill”.
From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000, although the real number is unknown). At any one time, the prison held between 1,000–1,500 prisoners. They were repeatedly tortured and coerced into naming family members and close associates, who were in turn arrested, tortured and killed.
Its pretty harrowing stuff but something that you have to visit when visiting Cambodia in my view.
Below is a few images that i took on a visit.
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- One of the entrances to part of the prison
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- An actual room where some of the torturing took place
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- Outside in the courtyard lies 14 tombs of the final 14 victims
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- Former school rooms that were divided into cells.
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- View from one the balconies
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