Perspective from Khao-I-Dang refugee camp.

Abstract

I am the physician on duty tonight in this hospital of 900 beds, and, as such, I am charged with overall responsibility for most of the inmates. Fortunately, there is a skeleton crew on duty over in surgery, where some 35 wounded were brought in today from a skirmish out on the border of Makmun (now razed) about 20 km away. We do not know for certain who was wounded by whom, whose shells and bullets have wreaked this havoc, but, as always, rumours are rife : It was the Viets shelling the camp (but God knows for what reason); was a battle between the Khmer Serai and the Khmer Rouge; was an internecine power struggle between rival factions over some lucrative gold or smuggling trade; or It was the Thai military that attacked. When faced with this unnecessary carnage, who of us cares what the reasons for the attack are ? There lies a woman dying from a major wound in her thorax; there is no more to do. There is a man who is now legless from walking into a landmine outside the camp. As I write this, there is a sudden flurry of small-arms fire and the unpleasantly loud crump of 79s. These noises come from about 400 yards away, where a column of refugees, fleeing from the battle of today and the beastliness of life in Kampuchea, has encountered a patrol of the Thai military, whose task is to prevent any more refugees from entering this camp.* And in this miniature scenario the whole frightful problem can be crystallised.