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31st Aug 2022

Thousands of people gather to witness the ‘end of the world’ after politician predicts ‘biblical’ floods

Kieran Galpin

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‘the world is breaking down’

After sharing his predictions on social media, a politician in Cambodia found himself with 20,000 people awaiting the “end of the world” on his rural farm.

Politician Khem Veasna, the founder and current leader of the League for Democracy Party, shared a doomsday prophecy with his 370,000 Facebook followers on August 23.

“I can’t sleep because whenever I sleep, my spinal cord is pulling so hard, because the world is breaking down, and the water is flowing into the gap,” he wrote alongside images of apparitions in the sky, which he claims are an early sign of the destruction to come.

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Many of his followers subsequently packed up and set off toward his farm. While it’s not yet apparent how many people have flocked to his residence, it’s believed to be between 15,000 and 20,000.

As reported on the Mail Online, Veasna is giving daily lectures from 1pm to 7pm, which are broadcast on loud speakers to the compound. Naturally, locals are pretty confused by the noise and have complained about the amount of public defecation.

Local authorities have since called for the doomsday cult members to disperse and return home but the community has largely ignored them despite threats of “appropriate legal action.”

Via Facebook

Veasna has also told police that he will assist them but barricades have since appeared to block the farm entrance.

“Even though the opposition has been allowed to resurrect to some extent, Cambodia is still very much marked by how this is a one-party mandate period,” Astrid Norén-Nilsson, senior lecturer at Lund University’s Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, told Vice. “Khem Veasna denounced politics and brought his followers with him on the journey to become a sort of millenarian social movement.”

She added: “It evidently speaks to people in these globally uncertain and rather dark times.”

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