SBS Dateline | Landless

The poor of Cambodia are literally being flooded out of their homes so high-rise developments can be built for the rich.

Over a thousand families have already been forced out of one site by rising water, threats and intimidation.

Video journalist David O’Shea first reported on Cambodia’s land grab in 2009, when people’s homes were being bulldozed around them, and now he returns to find little has improved.

He meets some people, who’ve been given unsafe housing with no running water and leaking sewage as ‘compensation’, and others who’ve been dumped on uninhabitable land.

And he meets the few who are battling adversity and big business to try and get justice.

WATCH - Click to see David's report.

EXTRA - Find out more about the work of campaign group, Bridges Across Borders, featured in David's report, and its backing of an internal investigation by the World Bank after complaints over its role in land-titling for affected residents.

REPLAY - David first reported on people being forced out of their homes by developers in our March 2009 story, Cambodia For Sale.

UPDATE (AUGUST 2011) - Thousands of the lakeside residents have been granted a small plot of land on which to resettle, after the World Bank said it would withhold funding to Cambodia if a resolution to the dispute was not found. Read the full story on the Asia Calling website.