Dith Pran

Dith Pran
Pran speaking in Athens, Ohio, May 2007
Born	(1942-09-27)27 September 1942 Siem Reap, French Indochina (present-day Cambodia)
Died	30 March 2008(2008-03-30) (aged 65) New Brunswick, New Jersey
Cause of death	Pancreatic cancer
Residence	Woodbridge, New Jersey
Employer	New York Times
Known for	The Killing Fields

Dith Pran (Khmer: ឌិត ប្រន; 27 September 1942 – 30 March 2008) was a Cambodian photojournalist best known as a refugee and survivor of the Cambodian genocide. He was the subject of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields (1984). He was portrayed in the film by first-time actor Haing S. Ngor (1940–1996), who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.

Pran was born in Siem Reap, Cambodia near Angkor Wat. His father worked as a public works official. He learned French at school and taught himself English.

The United States Army hired him as a translator but after his ties with the United States were severed, Pran worked with a British film crew for the movie Lord Jim and then as a hotel receptionist.

In 1975, Pran and New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg stayed behind in Cambodia to cover the fall of the capital Phnom Penh to the Communist Khmer Rouge. Schanberg and other foreign reporters were allowed to leave the country, but Pran was not. Due to persecution of intellectuals during the genocide, he hid the fact that he was educated or that he knew Americans and pretended to be a taxi driver. When Cambodians were forced to work in labour camps, Pran had to endure four years of starvation and torture before Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge in December 1978. He coined the phrase "killing fields" to refer to the clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered during his 40-mile (60 km) escape. His three brothers and one sister were killed in Cambodia.