Homes left in Phnom Penh

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33446, 30 January 1974, Page 17

Homes left in Phnom Penh

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PHNOM PENH, January 29.

Thousands of people were sleeping in the streets of central Phnom Penh early today after fleeing homes in the south-western sector of the city, pounded for the last four nights by well-entrenched insurgent artillery positions.

The insurgents have fired more than 350 rounds from captured American-built 105 mm. Howitzers, killing 85 people and wounding 185 others, since Thursday. Residents began moving away yesterday from southwestern Phnom Penh, where President Lon Nol’s private residence is located, in anticipation of more shelling attacks.

Military sources estimated that the insurgents were using three or four of the guns from concealed positions in the Ba Kou area, about six miles south-west of the city’s outskirts.

Cambodian Air Force planes and helicopter gunships were seen pounding suspected guerrilla positions all day yesterday. But one military observer said the American reconnaisance had indicated that the guns were tucked deep in fortified bunkers to protect them from bombs.

He said that it appeared a concentrated ground attack would be needed to dislodge them. About 30 rounds of artillery fire hit the south-west-ern and western sections of the city at dawn yesterday, killing one person and wounding 14 others. Among the targets were an area just 300 yards from Vice President Cheng Heng’s residence, wjiere one person was killed and another injured, and the Stung Mean Chey refugee camp, where five persons were injured. Eight persons were hit by shrapnel when a shell burst near a bunker where they had spent the previous night in a crowded south-western residential area. In New York, a United Na-

On tour A group of 41 members of the Canadian National Defence College has arrived in Tokyo on the first leg of a tour of six nations in Asia and Africa. The group includes four members from the United States, three from Britain, and one from Australia.—Tokyo, Jan. 29.

tions spokesman yesterday said that the U.N. had begun moving the families of some of its staff stationed in Phnom Penh.