Gunmen who massacred 34 ethnic Vietnamese villagers in northwest Cambodia, including children shot in the head or drowned, were Khmer Rouge guerrillas, local people said Friday.
"Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot," villagers shouted to journalists, naming the infamous leader of the Maoist group that put Cambodia through a reign of terror in the 1970s that killed a million people.Ten children were killed in the Wednesday-night raid on this floating village by as many as 40 gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles, police told Reuters.
"There were babies with their hands shot off . . . (The attackers) got into one houseboat and shot the kids in the head. It's that savage," a U.N. investigator said.
"They arrived by boat and carried out the attack with military precision."
A U.N. spokesman said there were 60 government soldiers and policemen in the village at the time of the attack, but they apparently offered no resistance and fled.
"They are reported to have escaped and none of them suffered any casualties," spokesman Eric Falt told reporters.
A floating police station is moored 500 yards from the site of the massacre.
Many of the bodies recovered had been shot in the head and shoulders, indicating they had been killed while trying to swim for safety, a U.N. source said.
The guerrillas have a vendetta against the Vietnamese, who ousted them from power when they invaded the country in late 1978.