The Catholic Church in Cambodia through its social action arm Caritas provided food packs to fisherfolk living along the Mekong River in Phnom Penh on May 5.
The vicariate of Phnom Penh also distributed 500 food packs to people who reside in the so-called "red zone" from May 1 to 8.
Caritas Cambodia's Kim Rattana said they were also able to distribute 320 halal food packs to Muslim families and another 400 food packs for other poor residents.
Since April 14, Caritas Cambodia provided food assistance to more than 4,000 families and were able to distribute 5,000 food packs during the lockdown due to the pandemic.
Rattana said that from May 1-5, the local church provided 2,500 lunch boxes to tuk-tuk drivers, taxi drivers, construction workers, among others.
The lunch boxes contain rice cooked with meat or soup, two cans of fish, and four packs of noodle.
"Life is very difficult," said Sat Zie, a Muslim woman who fish in the river. "We don't have income," she said, adding that markets where she sells her catch as closed.
Her neighbor, Sat Shizu, who has been living on a boat for more than 30 years, said he could only fish for an hour because of the lockdown.
The government of Cambodia has declared a lockdown in Phnom Penh and in Takhmao own because of the growing number of COVID-19 cases.
On May 6, Cambodia had 650 new cases or a total of 17,621 infected by the virus, 6,843 have fully recovered while 114 died. - RVA News
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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