Dark history lessons on wheels

High school students visiting the bus which has access to digital resources documenting the horrific rule of the Khmer Rouge in Angkor Chey, Cambodia. (Inset): High school students looking at booklets about the Khmer Rouge regime aboard the bus in Kampong Trach, Cambodia. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

THE brand-new bus gleamed as it weaved through rush-hour traffic in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. It was headed to a school, bearing a lesson about the country’s darkest period.

About two-thirds of Cambodia’s population is under 30, born a generation or more after the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. Many of those young people have only a general awareness of its atrocities, which left at least 1.7 million Cambodians dead.