Event · Twentieth century · Cambodia

Khmer Rouge

1975–1979

Communist regime in Cambodia under Pol Pot's party, April 1975–January 1979. Evacuation of cities, abolition of money and religion, S-21, mass killing. Excess deaths commonly estimated about 1.5–2 million.

Facts

Phnom Penh evacuated: 17 April 1975.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Khmer Rouge
Overthrown: Vietnamese capture of Phnom Penh, 7 January 1979.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Khmer Rouge
Death toll: Scholarly band roughly 1.5–2.0 million excess deaths (Kiernan, Heuveline and others).; Source: Ben Kiernan; Patrick Heuveline

The record

Angkar emptied Phnom Penh, abolished markets and money, and split 'base people' from 'new people'. S-21 under Duch tortured prisoners into false confessions; almost none survived. Choeung Ek was a killing field.

UN-backed trials decades later convicted Duch, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. This page files the regime years.

Images

Silent rural work site with abandoned tools under harsh noon light — emptied city mirrored in the fields, no revolutionary billboard.

Connected

Links in both directions: what this page points to, and what points here.

CountryCambodia EraTwentieth century1901–2000

Articles

Desk pieces that belong with this record.

2026-10-06The Khmer RougeThe forced evacuation of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, remains one of the most drastic urban clearances in modern history. As armed columns of the Khmer Rouge entered the Cambodian capital, signaling the end of the civil war, the new regime immediately issued orders emptying the city.Read

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