By May 1979 large numbers of refugees had set up improvised camps at Kampot, Mairut, Lumpuk, Khao Larn, and Ban Thai Samart, near Aranyaprathet.

[6] UNHCR sent one of its newest recruits, British journalist Mark Malloch Brown, together with his Thai assistant, Kadisis Rochanakorn, to survey the site, a 160,000-square-meter uninhabited area used for rice cultivation.

[4]: 176  With less than one day's advance notice, UNHCR and other volunteer agencies hastily constructed basic camp infrastructure as thousands of malnourished Cambodians arrived.

[5] According to Dr. Hans Nothdurft: "Initially, the camp was no more than a fenced-off area of bushland with no housing facilities, no water, and no sewage system; approximately 2.7 square meters of space were available for each person.

Part of the area was designated for the camp hospital; a bulldozer-cleared field with some bamboo-canvas construction provided primitive shelter for approximately 300 patients.

The health status of the first refugees in Sa Kaeo was dire; for several months many of them had been starving in the mountains sandwiched between the Vietnamese to the east and the closed Thai border to the west.

As the refugees arrived, nurses sent those who appeared to be sick or starving to a makeshift hospital which Dr. Levi Roque constructed by stringing a wire from a bulldozer to a tent pole and draping it with canvas.

Their repeated calls for x-ray facilities, for more laboratory support, and their preference for expensive drug regimens reflected medical cultural values of developed countries.

[10]: 36 A 1,200-bed hospital was initially no more than a thatched roof without walls, where patients lay on mats on the dirt floor with medical records and intravenous solutions clipped to wires above them.

[10]: 5  This was because the Khmer Rouge were eager to move some of their cadre to the sanctuary inside Thailand where they could receive food and medical attention, rest and recuperate, and regain their strength in order to fight the Vietnamese.

[1]: 37 [15]: 125  The Khmer Rouge quickly replicated their power structures in Sa Kaeo and their cadre exerted almost complete control over camp residents.

[5] In an effort to show US support for the Thai response, First Lady Rosalynn Carter visited Thailand with Richard Holbrooke, several members of congress and a group of journalists to tour the camp on 9 November 1979.

In one frequently-aired clip, a refugee died in front of Carter while an American physician protested irritably: "'This girl is about to go,' said an angry doctor, ordering the newsmen covering the visit to keep back.

"[20] Embarrassed by the unfavorable impression created by Sa Kaeo, the Thai government asked Mark Malloch Brown of the UNHCR to prepare a new site with better drainage and more space.

This was viewed as a gross violation of human rights by many aid workers, including the Preah Maha Ghosananda and the Reverend Peter L. Pond, who staged a protest at the camp's Buddhist temple in June 1980 and were imprisoned by the Thai military.

"[23] The international community responded with large amounts of food aid that was delivered to Cambodians by the "land bridge" at Nong Chan Refugee Camp.