PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Three venomous snakes were thrown into a Cambodian home that is locked in a land dispute with a private company hoping to develop the property, the family said.
The government swapped the land with the Khun Sear Import Export Company in 2010, but four of the seven families who live on the property have refused the $15,000 compensation offer to give up their land, The Phnom Penh Post reported.
The families allege they have been harassed for months.
Ly Sreang Kheng, 58, said that on Tuesday, an employee of the company threw a canvas bag containing three snakes into their home.
He and his family used a forked bamboo stick to trap the heads of the cobras, which can spit venom when they are threatened, and Kheng then clubbed two of the snakes to death, The Cambodia Daily reported.
The Human Rights Task Force and the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee have condemned the attacks in a joint statement.
"The residents had their property destroyed, their business demolished, their physical security threatened and violated, their water pipes and electricity cut off as well as five of their pets killed [while] no real action [was] ever taken by the local authorities against the perpetrators," the statement says.
