Huge crowds mourn Cambodia's beloved former king

CAMBODIA: A sea of mourners filled the streets of the Cambodian capital Friday for a lavish funeral for revered former king Norodom Sihanouk, who towered over six tumultuous decades in his nation's history.

Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, dressed in black and white, began massing before dawn to pay their respects to the mercurial monarch, who died of a heart attack in Beijing in October, aged 89.

The legions of mourners, many weeping and holding their hands together in a mark of respect, waited by the roadside as the procession inched through the city's avenues, flanked by courtiers in white traditional costume. A father of 14 children over six marriages, Sihanouk abdicated in 2004 after steering Cambodia through six decades marked by independence from France, civil war, the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, his own exile and finally peace.

Many elderly Cambodians credit him with overseeing a rare period of political stability in the 1950s and 1960s, following independence, until the Khmer Rouge emerged in the 1970s.

Up to two million people died under their reign of terror, including five of Sihanouk's own children. But even though the ever-changeable monarch had allied himself with the Maoist movement, he never lost his people's veneration. "He did great things for the country. I love him very much. I'm really sad that we've lost him," 70-year-old Suon Toch told AFP as he waited near the palace with his family, holding a portrait of the late royal.

AFP