🏛️ Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is the memorial site of the former S-21 interrogation and detention center of the Khmer Rouge regime. Located in central Phnom Penh, it preserves one of the most tragic chapters of Cambodian history and encourages visitors to become messengers of peace.

S-21, known officially as the Security Office 21 of Democratic Kampuchea, operated during the period when Phnom Penh was an abandoned city after its population was forcibly evacuated on 17 April 1975. The center served as the main hub of a nationwide network of prisons, functioning as a secret facility for the detention, interrogation, torture, and extermination of those labeled as “political enemies.”

Under a policy of guilt-by-association, even entire families were arrested and sent to S-21. Out of the thousands imprisoned there, only 12 people survived the liberation of Phnom Penh — including just four children.