Huge crowds of mourners lined the streets of the Cambodian capital on Wednesday waiting to pay their last respects to revered former king Norodom Sihanouk on his final journey home from China.
The mercurial ex-monarch, who steered his country through turbulent decades of war, genocide and finally peace, died of a heart attack in Beijing on Monday aged 89.
His coffin was transported through the Chinese capital earlier on Wednesday to the airport in a bus decorated with yellow ribbons and flowers, while flags flew at half-mast on Tiananmen Square in his honour.
In Phnom Penh, large portraits of a smiling Sihanouk were dotted along the main boulevards, which were filling up with throngs of people, young and old, wearing white shirts and carrying small Cambodian flags.
Authorities said they expected around 100,000 Cambodians to turn out for the late “King-Father” who saw his people as his “children”.
“I hope to see the royal body. I want to see his face one last time,” said Mean Pichavisa, 16, as he sat outside the royal palace cutting up black ribbons for his school friends to pin to their shirts in a symbol of mourning.
