Between 1975 and 1979 many Cambodians fled the violence in their country across these mountains. In one of the worst cases of enforced repatriation in UN history, the Thai military forcefully sent as many as 40,000 refugees back into Cambodia often through heavily mined areas despite their unwillingness to return. Many would die of lack of food and exposure in the mountains. To compound matters, there were also bandits hiding in the forests preying on the hapless refugees. At that time there were many corpses, lying rotting unburied, strewn about the Dângrêk Mountains.