A police official says at least three people are dead and several wounded after police in Cambodia opened fire Friday to break up a labor protest by striking garment workers.
Chuon Narin, deputy chief of the Phnom Penh Municipal Police, said the three were killed and two wounded in a southern suburb of the capital when police fired AK-47 rifles after several hundred workers blocking a road south of the capital Phnom Penh began burning tires and throwing objects at them.
The workers are part of a nationwide strike demanding a doubling of the minimum wage to $160 a months. About 500,000 Cambodian are employed in the garment industry, the country’s biggest export earner. The government has offered $100 a month.
Chuon Narin described the protesters as anarchists who were destroying public and private property.
