Floating home evictions begin amid protests

Forced to leave: Residents dismantling their floating house on the Tonle Sap river after they were ordered to leave within one week of being notified by local authorities in Prek Pnov district. — Reuters

PHNOM Penh has begun overseeing the dismantling of “floating home” communities on the banks of the Tonle Sap River over the objections of long-time residents who say they have nowhere else to go.

For generations, the floating wooden houseboats of Phnom Penh have been both livelihood and way of life for mostly ethnic Vietnamese families, home to fish farming and interconnected by warrens of hand-built bridges interspersed with sunken poles and small boats.