Loung Ung

Biography

Born in 1970 in Phnom Penh, Loung Ung was the daughter of a Royal Cambodian Army captain — a fact that would have meant her entire family's immediate execution if discovered. When the Khmer Rouge ordered the city's evacuation on April 17, 1975, five-year-old Loung fled with her parents, brothers, and sisters. For four years, her family disguised their identities and moved between villages, surviving on starvation rations, hiding her father's military background. She watched her father, mother, and two sisters die — executed, starved, or killed in attacks — while she and her surviving siblings struggled to stay alive. At age nine she was recruited as a child soldier by the Vietnamese-backed resistance. After surviving the genocide, Loung Ung eventually made it to the United States in 1980 as a refugee, settling in Vermont with her brother and his wife. She later wrote her memoir 'First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers' (2000), which became an international bestseller and a critically acclaimed film directed by Angelina Jolie (2017), filmed in Cambodia with a cast of non-professional actors, many of them genocide survivors and their descendants. Loung Ung became a spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World and an activist for Cambodian survivors. Her life represents the trajectory of an entire generation: child of the genocide, refugee, American immigrant, and witness to the world.

Key Battles