TAKEO – In 1982, when war had made even the soil unpredictable, Ek Yorn was a 22-year-old Khmer Rouge porter walking the border trails with baskets of food on her shoulders. One quiet afternoon, the earth shifted beneath her foot and her life split in two.

At that time, Yorn was working in a Khmer Rouge guerrilla unit near the Cambodian Thai frontier, spending her days carrying supplies through areas where danger waited under the dirt. She remembers the moment she stepped onto something she could not see but would never forget.

"It was a landmine placed by government soldiers," she said softly. "I blacked out right away and woke up in a Khmer Rouge military hospital."

For a young woman on her own, the loss of her left leg was more than a physical wound. It hollowed her sense of dignity and left her overwhelmed by despair.

"I felt my life was finished and I wished I had died," she said. "I was so ashamed that I shut myself inside and avoided everyone."

Years later, when she returned to her village in Takeo Province in the early 1990s, she said she felt as if something inside her began to mend.

"I went to a rehabilitation center here in Takeo and they fitted me with a prosthetic leg," she said. "It was the first time I could move without leaning on crutches and I felt joy I had not felt in years."

In time, her life widened again. She married and became a mother to three children.

Yorn was not the only one who found a second chance after the war took a limb from them. Many others reached the same center with stories shaped by explosions that tore through their bodies and futures.

In 1988, Uth Seth was a 21-year-old government soldier when he was deployed to Samlot District in what was then Battambang Province. His unit was sent there to fight the Khmer Rouge forces still active in the area.

"I was patrolling along the road with my group," he said. "Not long after, my foot landed on a mine that the Khmer Rouge had hidden right in the middle of the path."

He was taken to the military hospital in Phnom Penh where doctors removed his right leg.
"After that, I felt like there was nothing worth living for," he said. "My friends tried their best to lift my spirits.”

When he went back to his home village in Samroang District in Takeo Province, he learned about the Physical Rehabilitation Center.

"They made me a prosthetic leg without charging anything," he said. "Later on, I married a woman from the village."

The Takeo center has been a lifeline for thousands. Its manager, Toch Sam Oeun, said the center opened in 1985 to assist war victims from Takeo, Kampong Speu, and Kampot.

"In those days, about ninety percent of the people who came to us were amputees who had been injured during the conflict or after stepping on mines," Sam Oeun recalled.

Ten years after its establishment, Handicap International became involved and supported the center with technical know-how and financial assistance for fifteen years.

"Later on, in 2010, the center was handed back to the government," Sam Oeun said. "By then we had learned how to craft prosthetic limbs and had all the skills we needed."

He explained that mine victims gradually became fewer, and over time, the center saw a rise in people who lost limbs in traffic crashes or to diabetes.

"Right now, around seventy percent of those who come here are injured in road accidents. Better roads have encouraged faster driving, which often ends tragically."

According to Sam Oeun, between fifty and sixty people visit the center each month to receive treatment and support from a team of about twenty staff members.

"We offer every service without asking for payment," he said.

With one technical officer and four assistants, the center manufactures prosthetic legs in-house after measuring the patients and assessing the length of the remaining limb.

"We also give physical therapy to patients who are paralyzed after strokes," he said.

After many years in this work, Sam Oeun said he finds deep fulfillment in what his team has been able to achieve.

"I feel proud of what I do," he said. "It means a lot to witness someone take their first steps again after coming through our doors.”