Ba Chúc massacre

Communists in Vietnam and Cambodia allied to fight the U.S.-backed government during the Vietnam War, but after taking power the Khmer Rouge leadership began to purge its ranks of Vietnamese-trained personnel and then began to invade Vietnam. On 3 May 1975, Khmer Rouge troops invaded Phu Quoc Island, then on 10 May, they occupied Tho Chu Island, killing 528 civilians, and on 14 June, they were expelled by the Vietnamese People's Army (PAVN). Despite the conflict, the leaders of the reunified Vietnam and of Cambodia held several public diplomatic exchanges during 1976 to underscore their supposedly-strong ties; however, the Khmer Rouge began cross-border attacks. Such incidents occurred in Kien Giang province on March 15–18, 1977 and in An Giang province from 25 to 28 March, with more attacks on April 30, May 17, and May 19, killing 222 civilians in the May 17 assault. The Central Khmer Rouge shelled Chau Doc, the capital of An Giang Province. On 25 September 1977, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Khmer Rouge launched an attack along the Cambodia-Vietnam border, about 10 kilometers deep into the territory of Tay Ninh Province, killing 592 local residents. ==Massacre==

On 18 April 1978, the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea crossed the border in Vietnam and surrounded the town of Ba Chúc from the border, cutting off all roads leading into the town. The Khmer Rouge then began to go from house to house looting valuables and killing cattle, before burning the houses to the ground. By 30 April, the Khmer Rouge had retreated from the town before the Vietnamese army showed up leaving land mines that killed or injured another 200. By the end of the massacre, 3,157 civilians had been killed. Nguyen Van Kinh, a survivor of the massacre, recounted: "...my wife, four children and six grandchildren were all killed. Before shooting, they forced [us] to strip all jewelry and property... When I woke up, I looked around and saw all the bodies. I was dumbfounded when I saw my granddaughter holding her mother's breast and sucking and next to her dear daughter lying motionless in a pool of blood." He crawled out of a pile of corpses under the cover of darkness and hid in a cave in the Bảy Núi, known as Elephant Mountain, when "those who were mutilated by Pol Pot did not stop screaming". ==Aftermath==

At the end of 1978, Pol Pot used ten divisions to prepare for a full-scale invasion against Vietnam. In this context, on 7 December 1978, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Central Military Commission passed the decision to officially enter the Third Indochina War and overthrow Pol Pot's regime. Instead of retreating to safer areas for long term guerrilla warfare right from the start, overestimating their own strength, the majority of the Kampuchean Revolutionary Army (KRA) forces faced the PAVN head on, only to be easily defeated by the far more experienced Vietnamese military within 2 weeks. The Khmer Rouge rapidly collapsed and was overthrown on 7 January 1979 as it fled across the Cambodia–Thailand border and went into hiding, thus ending the Cambodian genocide as a whole. ==Memorial==

After the war, in 1979, the An Giang provincial government built a cemetery for the deceased in Ba Chuc. Every year on 15 and 16 March of the lunar calendar, collective sacrificial ceremonies were held for the deceased. The cemetery and the two temples used for the massacre are listed as national historical sites. In 2011, An Giang Province allocated 30 billion Vietnamese đồng to rebuild the cemetery for the victims. The cemetery covers an area of , including a cemetery. The tomb and the memorial hall displays pictures and objects of the scene. and the burial chamber contains the remains of 1,159 uncollected victims of the massacre, of which 1,017 skulls have been classified according to their age. and gender identification, ==References==