Deathwatch: Cambodia

It is a country soaked in blood, devastated by war, and its people are starving to death. Every day numbed witnesses to the appalling tragedy that has consumed Cambodia trek across the border into Thailand. Stumbling on reed-thin legs through the high elephant grass that grows along the frontier, they form a grisly cavalcade of specters, wrapped in black rags. Many are in the last stages of malnutrition, or are ravaged by such diseases as dysentery, tuberculosis and malaria. Perhaps the most pathetic images of all are those of tearful, exhausted mothers cradling hollow-eyed children with death's-head faces, their bellies swollen, their limbs as thin and fragile as dried twigs. Since early October, an estimated 80,000 Cambodians have made it safely across the border, and perhaps 250,000 others are clustered in the western provinces of the country, waiting for their chance to escape. They are the lucky ones. Relief agencies believe that as many as 2.25 million Cambodians could die of starvation in the next few months unless a vast amount of aid is provided soon.

With food and proper care, most of the adults in the refugee camps have a chance for full recovery. Many of the children, however, have already suffered permanent brain damage and bone deformation as a result of malnutrition. The riveting photographs of these innocent victims of regional avarice and ethnic hatreds have helped arouse universal horror at the ordeal of Cambodia. In 1975 the country had a population of approximately 8 million; as many as 4 million Cambodians have died since then.

No nation on earth has seen more suffering in the past decade than this once tranquil and fertile land. Though neutral in the early years of the Viet Nam War, Cambodia unwittingly became a base for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, and the target of savage U.S. bombings. Its popular Chief of State, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was overthrown by Premier Lon Nol in 1970. Lon Nol was in turn deposed by Pol Pot when the Khmer Rouge, as the Cambodian Communist forces are called, took over the country in 1975. After four years of mass terror and murder under the Khmer Rouge the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia last December and installed a puppet regime headed by President Heng Samrin.

Cambodia's agony continues. Hanoi, with 180,000 soldiers operating in the country, has now embarked on an intensive effort to wipe out the remaining Khmer Rouge forces loyal to Pol Pot. Unless the fighting is halted somehow, Cambodia itself could be the ultimate casualty of war.