1980 Photo Contest, News Feature, 1st prize
Photographer

David Burnett

Contact Press Images

01 November, 1979

A Cambodian woman cradles her child while waiting for food to be distributed at the Sa Kaeo Holding Center, Thailand.

The holding center had been opened one month earlier to accommodate refugees fleeing Cambodia after the Vietnamese invasion in December 1978. In January 1979, the Vietnamese army captured Phnom Penh and established the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, ending the Khmer Rouge regime, which had held the country for nearly four years. The invasion caused a mass migration of hundreds of thousands Cambodians returning home or fleeing to western Cambodia, near the Thai border.

About the photographer

David Burnett

David Burnett was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, 1946. He began working as a freelancer for Time, and later for Life magazine in the 1960s. After two years in Vietnam, and the dem...

Technical information

Camera
Canon AE1-1

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