Security before and during Water Festival
Every year, Cambodian people always celebrate the Water Festival taking place in October or November, at the time of full moon, and is the most extravagant and exuberant festival in Khmer calendar, outdoing even the new year celebrations. This year, the festival will be during 4 to 6 October 2006.
For national authorities, they are strengthening their forces in order to ensure that revelers of the Festival. There are hundreds of police and military police to be deployed in the capital. And trucks banned from entering in city in an attempt to ease congestion and make Cambodians safe. This year, there will be an expected 1.5 million visitors to celebrate this event. The municipality officer said that the population of the capital will essentially double during the three-day festival. At the mean time, the City Hall has to arrange enough toilets for the crowds of people and boat racers this year.
There are more than 30,000 boat racers to participate in the Water Festival. So that they need temporary shelters and residences to live during and before celebration.
Recently, the government arrested unknown 6 men for charging them to commit acts of terrorism during the Water Festival. Government officials said that the alleged men’s aim is to cause explosions during the festival, and they are anarchist group and terrorists. Those were apprehended in different provinces, and detained with revealing the locations.
The festival marks the changing of the flow of the Tonle Sap River and is also seen as thanksgiving to the Mekong River for providing the country with fertile land and abundant fish. It is at this time when the river flow reverts to its normal down-stream direction. In a remarkable phenomenon, the Tonle Sap River earlier reverses its course as the rainy season progresses, with the river flowing “upstream” to Tonle Sap Lake. Then as the rainy season tapers off, the river changes direction once again as the swollen Tonle Sap Lake begins to empty back into the Mekong River, leaving behind vast quantities of fish.
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