Yoeuth Yoeun is visibly shaken by her memories. Her husband, Chamroeun Ros, sits next to her in her family home in Banteay Meanchey province, Cambodia. Yoeun describes how she had to run away through the forest and lost her loved ones. It was the year 1975, she was five years old and the Khmer Rouge had just taken power. The then girl survived for years in Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand, across the border. When she was 17 years old, she met a man named Kosal who worked at a children’s hospital and asked him if he needed staff. “Are you kidding or are you serious?” the man replied. Yoeun was serious.
The young woman was trained in anatomy and basic health care at the hospital, which had been enabled by Doctors Without Borders. And there she met Ros, another Cambodian who had also crossed the border to Thailand to avoid being recruited by the Army. He was interested in working in the healthcare sector, and by chance he ended up in the same center where Yoeun worked. There they met for the first time.
This, however, is not the end of the refugee couple’s love affair. It’s not even the beginning. They would still have to cross more and more borders, make decisions and overcome many obstacles to get to where they are today: at home, surrounded by their children, returned to their country of origin and working in the care of patients with sexually transmitted infections or who live with HIV/AIDS. In this video, they themselves tell their story of love without borders.
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