Fake news: However, I'm sorry to inform you that the article is no more and no less than a complete rip-off from a 2013 article published in the Cambodia Daily. The story of the miracle toddler has been dug up from the deep archives of the Daily and embroidered by the author's imagination.
Desperate for a Cure, Thousands Flock to Child Healer
By
Mech Dara and Kate Bartlett -
October 30, 2013
DAMBE DISTRICT, Kompong Cham Province – Lying on makeshift stretchers, seated in cheap wheelchairs, blind people wearing dark glasses, children with twisted limbs and slack jaws—all sat on the dirt clasping smoking sticks of incense and muttering quiet prayers Tuesday, hoping to be healed.
For days now, since news spread of 2-year-old Kong Keng’s purported healing powers, the infirm, the lame, the sick and terminally ill have flocked here to dusty Khnor village, some having traveled from as far away as the borders of Laos and Vietnam.
Child healer Kong Keng, 2, and his mother, Phat Soeun, in Kompong Cham province on Tuesday (Kate Bartlett/The Cambodia Daily)
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/desp ... ler-46239/
Here we also have a magic boy named Kong Keng aged 2 years old in 2013, with a mother named Phat Soen, living in Kampong Cham.
There is no chance that this is a coincidence, so when the author of the Vice article writes in the first person, how he pays $5 to see the magic boy and interviews the family members, he is writing fiction. He is making up the entire episode and that should be made clear. It is fake news.
The 'article' published in November 2018:
Two-year-old Kong Keng opened his eyes and furrowed his brow. He looked scared and confused by the crowd of ailing people crammed into the single room of his wooden home.
To get into the magic boy's house, I had to bribe the village chief with $5. Inside, the single room was packed. The district governor sat alongside a blind monk who told me that he believed the boy would make him see again. The boy and his mother were taking their afternoon nap on a wooden bed. We all sat and waited.
Kong Keng woke up and Phat Soen, the boy’s mother, clearly tired, refused to speak to me at first. After some cajoling from her mother, she agreed to a brief interview
https://www.vice.com/amp/en_nz/article/ ... ic-toddler
