# Fall of Democratic Kampuchea and Phnom Penh (7 January 1979)

URL: https://allhistories.com/cambodia/timeline/1979-fall-of-democratic-kampuchea-and-phnom-penh
Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Themes: main-event

On 7 January 1979 the People's Army of Vietnam, with units of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, entered Phnom Penh after a campaign of about seventeen days. The leaders of Democratic Kampuchea and the main army units withdrew toward the Thai border. Norodom Sihanouk had flown to Beijing the day before, and the S-21 prison was found nearly empty. The capital had been largely emptied since April 1975. A population table in Wikipedia's Phnom Penh article, which the article itself flags as inconsistent, gives about 32,000 residents in 1978. The invasion met little organised resistance in the cities, and the Kampuchea Revolutionary Army lost a large share of its strength in the first two weeks of fighting. The fall ended the period that researchers estimate cost about 1.7 to 2 million lives, although estimates vary widely by method and author. It did not bring peace: the leadership regrouped on the Thai border and fought a guerrilla war until the 1990s, while hundreds of thousands of survivors moved across the country in search of relatives and food. At this point in the timeline (1979), Head of State (Chairman of the State Presidium) Khieu Samphan (1976 – 1979) was head of state of Democratic Kampuchea; Prime Minister Pol Pot (1976 – 1979) led the government.

## Why it matters
The fall ended the Khmer Rouge government and the worst phase of the genocide, opening a new conflict that lasted until 1991.

Ruler at the Time: [Khieu Samphan](https://allhistories.com/cambodia/rulers/khieu-samphan)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Democratic Kampuchea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Kampuchea)
- [Wikipedia — Cambodian–Vietnamese War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_War)
- [Wikipedia — Cambodian genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide)