Shunned by authorities on both sides of the border, Mr Bach Bai has been relying on the generosity of strangers since his ethnic Vietnamese fishing community was evicted from Cambodia’s capital three weeks ago and cast off downstream on their floating homes.
But few are willing to help hundreds of stateless families, who had earned a living breeding fish and hosting tourists on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap River, and are now moored to a riverbank a few kilometres from Vietnam, desperate to be allowed inside.
“I was born on the Tonle Sap but I’m told Cambodia is no longer my home,” Mr Bai said, squatting on the bow of his tiny vessel in Leuk Daek, about 100km south of Phnom Penh, as his three young children ate noodles and asked reporters for money.
