Two 6-year-old boys drowned on Wednesday afternoon while swimming in a canal in Kandal province’s Kandal Stung district, officials said Thursday.
illagers discovered the bodies of twins Thorn Chamrong and Thorn Tharath at about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Anlong Romiet commune after their grandmother raised the alarm, according to commune chief Siv Savath.
“When their grandmother was cooking in the kitchen the boys went to swim in the canal and drowned,” Mr. Savath said. Deputy commune police chief Kien Vanna said foul play had been ruled out.
“After the accident we came to examine the bodies of the victims and the results showed that they drowned and there was no evidence of murder,” he said. Mr. Vanna estimated that the bodies had been submerged for about half an hour when they were found.
According to a World Health Organization report released last month, drowning is the most common cause of death in children between the ages of 5 and 14 in Cambodia, with more than half of the estimated 1,357 victims in 2012 aged under 15.
