Only two other beggars work the gates of Tuol Sleng: a man with a missing forearm and another with a missing leg. Both refused to be interviewed.

Twelve kilometres to the south lies Choeung Ek, a former orchard and cemetery where the Khmer Rouge executed approximately 17,000 people before burying them in mass graves. Today, a small museum, numerous grassy pits, and a stupa filled with bones remind visitors of this tree-shaded site’s inglorious past.

Hang Doul, 60, has been begging at the Choeung Ek killing fields since 1988. He steadies himself on a homemade crutch; his right leg ends abruptly at the thigh. Hang Doul’s approach is quiet and polite: he extends his hat towards tourists and mumbles combinations of the few English words he knows: money, hello, please, rice, sir. If tourists decline, he does not persist. He never asks for money from Choeung Ek’s Cambodian visitors. “They tell me I’m just a beggar,” he says. “They only give me unkind words.”

In 1980, while fighting the Khmer Rouge near Kampot, Hang Doul lost most of his right leg to a landmine. His wounds were treated in Vietnam by the very communists he fought against in the early 1970s when stationed in Nha Trang, South Vietnam as a soldier in Lon Nol’s American-trained and -equipped army. “The Americans treated me well,” Hang Doul says. “We were all like friends.” Before enlisting, he had lived as a Buddhist monk.

When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, Hang Doul hid his soldiering past for fear of violent reprisals against him and his family. Like so many others at the time, he was forced to work in the fields from dawn to dusk with little to eat.

Every day, in an amazing feat of balance, Hang Doul rides his bicycle to Choeung Ek where he is joined by fellow landmine amputee Chum Bun Choon. Whereas Chum Bun Choon – who lost a leg while fighting the Khmer Rouge in 1987 – still receives his monthly army salary of $25, Hang Doul receives nothing.

A day’s begging can net these men anywhere from $10 to $20 apiece, a small fortune in a country where 28.3% of the population lives off less than $1.25 a day. Both men have never made more money in their lives: before moving to Phnom Penh, Hang Doul struggled as a farmer in Takeo province, and until a year ago, Chum Bun Choon sold books and coins to tourists in Phnom Penh’s Russian Market.

Still, both men say that they live a hand-to-mouth existence. “Sometimes my children don’t have anything to eat,” Hang Doul says. “I can never make enough money.” Chum Bun Choon claims to be racked with debt ever since his eldest daughter’s wedding.

While Hang Doul dreams of saving enough money to buy a pair of cows, he considers this an idle fantasy: every last riel he makes goes towards feeding, clothing and educating his ten children. “When they are older,” he says, “they will support me. But for now, I must beg.” Chum Bun Choon, who supports his wife and eight children, also plans to continue begging into the foreseeable future. “I would like to do something new,” he says, “I like to learn. But I don’t have time. I have to take care of my family.”

When exiting Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng, tourists likely create a cognitive association between the atrocities they have just witnessed and the living display of suffering begging before them. Compound this with a yearly increase of visitors to these sites, and Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng become something of a beggars’ banquet. A consequence of this is that begging rights are jealously guarded.

For several years, Tuol Sleng’s beggars have formed a firm triumvirate: they allow absolutely no outsiders to beg within their territory. Local tuk tuk drivers say that other beggars attempting to work around the former prison are promptly turned away with threatening words. While a few elderly and disabled beggars can occasionally be spotted in nearby streets, none of them dare to beg within sight of the museum’s entrance.

Similarly, the begging at Choeung Ek is monopolised by its two landmine amputees. In their case, however, their territorial claims are not as calculated. While Choeung Ek’s security guards generally discourage begging at the site, Hang Doul and Chum Bun Choon’s presence is tolerated because they both live a short distance away.

In contrast to Tuol Sleng, other beggars attempting to work the gates of Choeung Ek are turned away by the site’s security. Such was the case when Chum Bun Choon first arrived last year. His perseverance, however, eventually eroded the guards’ (and Hang Doul’s) resistance.

With his lucrative occupation seemingly secured for the time being, Chum Bun Choon has settled into the life of a beggar. Like Tuol Sleng’s disfigured trio, he enjoys the advantages brought about by monopolisation – a situation that will persist until the beggars are strong-armed off their turf by either the authorities or a new generation of unfortunates.