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
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