Goodbye, Kampung Koskan Tambahan
Residents who have lived their entire lives in the small village worry about where to go as bulldozers begin their work.
Photographs by Djohan Shahrin
An aerial view of Kampung Koskan Tambahan, a small village in Serendah, Rawang, comprising just 12 families or 45 people.
During the day, most of the men and young people are away at work while the women stay home with the children.
A villager receives the day's mail from the postman.
Most of their daily essentials are bought from Siva, a trader who travels from place to place with his goods in his van.
Siva even sells raw goods, carrying the carefully arranged vegetables in baskets at the back.
Villager Maszahar Hashim holds up a letter from the Hulu Selangor Land Office stating that the residents are occupying private land despite their belief that they have been living on government reserve land.
Lorry driver Mohd Saufi Md Kasim is the third generation of his family to have lived in the village, where he and his wife share a small house with their five children.
With the eviction order given to the villagers, he must now find a new home.
Mohd Khalid Md Kasim used to keep goats but now his fields are empty as he has sold everything since receiving the eviction notice.
Residents gather at the entrance of the village to meet the landowners and officers from the Land and Mines Office as well as enforcement and court officers.
Workers from Tenaga Nasional Bhd arrive to cut the village's electricity supply.
Villagers hold up signs, protesting the eviction order and the lack of official agreement about the residents themselves.
Children join the adults in holding signs and placards.
The villagers gather to negotiate with the landowners and the special officer to the Selangor menteri besar, but in the end, the eviction and demolition process continues.
Police from the Serendah station arrive to keep an eye on the situation.
The villagers watch as heavy machinery begins taking apart one of the houses.
Others watch from their homes as the unoccupied houses are demolished one by one.
These are the homes of those who have already left the village in order to make a new future somewhere else.
Others, like these children and their families, linger on with little idea of what will come.
All they can do is watch as the bulldozers do their work.
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