CAMBODIA: Four Khmer Rouge families have emerged from remote Cambodian jungles 25 years after fleeing the Vietnamese invasion which toppled the Pol Pot regime.
The group, which expanded from 12 to 34 during their years in the north-eastern jungles, had avoided human contact in the belief they would be killed if Vietnamese troops found them.
Vietnamese troops, which invaded Cambodia in December 1979, left in September 1989, when there were still remnants of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge battling the Hanoi-installed government in Phnom Penh.
The Khmer Rouge families had lived off the land in jungles teeming with poisonous snakes, leeches and malaria, officials have said.
"They even took the rice from the crop of doves for seeds so they could survive," human right activist Pen Bunna, who interviewed the group.
As they moved, they crossed the border into Laos and eventually came across people in remote areas from whom they stole food, Ratanakiri police said.
The Lao called the police, who arrived in a truck and made a search but found nothing. The Khmer saw the tracks of the truck, however, and decided to emerge from the jungles.
The group is being looked after by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.