Cambodian police are investigating a raid on a US-funded women's shelter in which gunmen abducted 93 women and young girls. Police had rescued them from a brothel, officials said yesterday.
| And the pimps wanted the back... |
Washington has demanded a full investigation into the incident which began on Tuesday when the victims were rescued from a brothel in Phnom Penh, and taken to the shelter. A day later 30 armed gunmen abducted the group in a raid on the shelter, which has closed temporarily after its employees were threatened by the intruders. Police said they did not know who had stormed the shelter and no arrests had been made. "We cannot ignore this and we need further investigation," General Heng Peov, Phnom Penh's police chief, said.
| What you need to do is track them down, get the girlies back, and kill the guys who took them. What's complicated about that? |
About 50 of the women had earlier shown up at the US embassy in Phnom Penh yesterday to say they were not prostitutes but worked at the hotel as bar or massage girls, Heng Peov said.
| I guess there's a diffo in Cambodia... |
He said the group, aged 18 to 28, had either returned to work at the hotel or had gone home. "They were not sex workers. They just worked as massage or karaoke girls," said Heng Peov.
| Then how'd they get kidnapped? |
Embassy officials were unavailable for comment, but in Washington a top US diplomat in charge of combating human trafficking demanded a full investigation. "What the government of Cambodia has to do is arrest the traffickers, free the victims and stand behind the police chief who made the raid," said John Miller of the State Department. Cambodia's Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department, headed by General Un Sokunthea, had rescued the women and children and arrested operators of the brothel hotel on December 7, the State Department said in a statement. The statement said eight brothel operators were reportedly released a day later and went back armed to seize the victims from a shelter run by the NGO Agir pour les Femmes En Situation Precaire [Acting for Women in Distressing Situations]. |