Kith Meng is the youngest of three sons of Chinese Cambodian businessman Kith Peng Ike . Kith Meng led a comfortable life in his hometown in Kandal Province until 1975 when the advent of the Khmer Rouge regime caused major social upheaval . Kith 's family were among those targeted by the Khmer Rouge because of their wealth , ethnicity and socio-economic status . The entire family was sent to a labour camp where , upon arrival , Meng and his two brothers were separated from their parents who later died of starvation . During the confusion resulting from the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea , Meng escaped with his older brother to Phnom Penh , from which they then fled for the refugee camps in Thailand . In Thailand , Meng later related , “ They put us in a pig farm ... we slept with the pigs ... we no longer existed ; we had no state , nothing . " In 1980 , Meng and Thieng were found by a family member in a Thai refugee camp and both brothers immigrated to Australia , where they worked and attended school in the nation 's capital , Canberra
targeted
Cambodian genocide
Kith Meng