40 years ago today, Pol Pot began the Cambodian genocide.

65% of the population in Cambodia is under the age of 25. Many are orphans.

If you’d like to help, you can visit the Cambodian Children’s Fund to find out how.

1. April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge (KR) took Cambodia’s capital.
2. The KR was headed by Pol Pot, a socialist revolutionary.
3. His goal was to create an agrarian (farming) communist utopia.
4. The KR forced everyone in cities out into farming labor camps.
5. Thousands died from exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease.
6. The KR also enforced “purification of the populace.”
7. Religious, ethnic, and class purging killed 25% of population.
8. Estimates range between 1 and 3 million people.
9. It is one of the largest genocides in modern history.
10. “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.”

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