Residents have complained to their commune council to have sanitation problems at Domak Sadav Market in Battambang province’s Rattan Mondul district cleared up.
 
Local authorities have failed to do anything about the mud and garbage, which piles high in the rainy season, in a market that sells produce, including for export, vendors say.

The stench is terrible, they say, while health workers are concerned the market could make people ill.

Hun Sadeng, a spice vendor at Domak Sadav, wears a mask to help keep the stink at bay.

“In Sadav Market, there’s no sanitation,” she said. “The smell of garbage affects my house, near here, and there is no place to dump garbage, and there has not been a drainage system since I came to live here five years ago.”

“I want to have clean sanitation, to avoid, when it rains, puddles of waters that have mosquitoes,” she said.

Garbage is never collected on time, vendors say, and they worry about their health.
 
Representatives from the local Cambodian Youth Council, a civic group, have sent a petition with 600 thumbprints to the commune council to have the market fixed.

Commune Chief Puch Peng denied such conditions at the market and said he had not received the Youth Council petition.

The director of the market could not be reached for comment, but Puch Peng said market management was not to blame.

“They collect garbage everyday, and never leave it for four or five days,” he said. “There is nothing left over to make it smell. But the main problem is that there is no drainage system, because it is caused by people having a pig farm.”