Authorities in Oddar Meanchey province are searching for a teenage boy who accidentally shot and killed his friend on Saturday while hunting near their village in Trapaing Prasat district, officials said Monday.
Mot Puth, 15, and his friend Lim Leat, 13, had been hunting birds in a forest about 1.5 km from their homes in Trapaing Prasat commune at midday on Saturday when Puth shot the younger boy in the right thigh with a homemade shotgun, according to deputy police chief Yeom Yat.
Mr. Yat said Puth ran back to his village to tell Lim Leat’s parents what he had done.
He said the parents of both teenagers rushed the victim to the Anlong Veng district referral hospital, where he bled to death at 7 p.m. from wounds caused by three ball bearings fired from the shotgun.
“The boy who caused the accident fled and now we are looking for him,” he added. Phou Nat, chief of Thnal Keng village, where the boys’ families live, said the teenagers were close friends and often went hunting together.
“I’m very sorry about this. He died because he bled so much. If there had been an adult around, he might have been saved in time.”
