"Families in Oudomxay Province First to Receive Compensation From Lao-China Railway", 8 May 2018

More than 20 Lao families...displaced by construction of a high-speed railway linking the country with China are the first to receive compensation for the loss of their farmland to the megaproject....

Those receiving payments can no longer plant rice because railway construction has encroached upon their land and left them without money to buy rice to eat....

...Though the land the families had to give up has an estimated worth of 12 million kip (U.S.$1,430) per hectare, some received 5 million-6 million kip (U.S.$595-$715) per hectare....

...Thousands of Lao families are being forced to relocate to make way for the U.S. $6 billion Lao-Chinese railway....

...One villager who had to move out of his original home more than a week ago now lives in a temporary dwelling that the company involved in the rail project has rented for him.

“We are having a hard time because we used to have a small store that sold things in our house, so we had a daily income,” said the man who declined to be named. “It’s true that the company pays for our rent, but we have no income to buy food to eat.”