About 30 representatives of families living along the railway in Phnom Penh’s Toul Kok district Tuesday gathered outside the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to submit a new request for information about how residents would be affected by a Bank-funded railway rehabilitation project.
About 20 members of the embattled Boeng Kak and Thmar Kol communities joined the representatives, who want to know how they will be impacted by the second and third phases the railway project.
The first phase of the $143-million railway project will affect families living within 3.5 meters of the tracks on both sides, but the ADB has refused to say if later phases of the project will require more land.
Ny Sandos, a representative of the affected families, said that the ADB’s latest response to the family’s demand for a full explanation of its plans for the railway through their community did not address their concerns.
“We come today to reject the ADB’s letter that was given to us [on August 8]; their answer is not related to our question,” she said. “We informed them that we will return…to get information on September 1.”
About 1,000 families have already been evicted to make way for the railway project, and the ADB and government have been widely criticized for failing to offer the families proper compensation or relocation sites.
