The barges arrive after dark. From the bank at Prek Ambel you hear them before you see them — a low diesel hum, then the slap of a suction pipe hitting water.
Cambodia banned commercial sand dredging on this stretch of the Mekong in September 2024, three months after the river took twelve houses in a single night. Two years on, RielMedia counted nine barges working the same reach across six nights in August, and tracked two of them to a licence issued in a neighbouring district.
Villagers say the erosion never stopped. Satellite imagery reviewed for this story shows the bank at Prek Ambel retreating a further eleven metres between March and July.
“We were told the river would rest. The river has not rested.”Chan Sokhun, village chief, Prek Ambel
The provincial department of mines and energy said in a written reply that all permits for the reach are “under review” and that no new authorisations have been granted since 2024. It did not answer three questions about the barges photographed on 19 August.
Sand from this stretch of river is trucked to construction sites in Phnom Penh, where demand has climbed with a run of mid-rise permits along the eastern ring road. A cubic metre that leaves the barge at roughly $4 sells for three times that at the yard.
A hydrologist at the Mekong River Commission, who asked not to be named because he is not authorised to speak publicly, said the reach is “one of the least stable” the commission monitors in Cambodia.
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