Two Syrian Women, Two Toddlers Killed In Lake Crash

Four Syrian nationals were killed, three people are still missing and one man—also Syrian—survived after the car in which they were traveling crashed and overturned into a pond after water flooded a road in Prey Veng province’s Ba Phnom district on Sunday night, officials said.

Two women and two young children, all Syrian, were killed in the crash, said provincial deputy police chief Sos Vanna, adding that the bodies of two other passengers, also Syrian, and their Cambodian driver are still missing.

Mr. Vanna said the crash occurred between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Sunday evening, when the Toyota Camry car in which the group was traveling drove into a flooded section of roadway at high speed. The car left the road and was submerged, overturned in the pond located in Ba Phnom district’s Theay commune.

“[On Monday] morning, we found the corpses of three foreigners floating, while one was trapped in the car,” Mr. Vanna said.

“Now we understand that two foreigners and one Cambodian are still missing. Two female foreigners and two boys, aged about 1 and 2, were dead. But police haven’t been able to identify the victims because the survivor, a man, doesn’t speak English.”

The crash’s sole survivor was able to tell police his nationality by pointing to Syria on a map the police showed to him, the police chief said.

The bodies of the women and children are being kept in the Neak Loeung Referral Hospital and efforts are being made to contact next of kin.

A representative reached at the Syrian Embassy in Malaysia did not return a request for comment.

Pov Chivi, the provincial bureau chief of the immigration police, said the municipal immigration department in Phnom Penh sent two people to Prey Veng—an Arabic speaker and an English speaker—but they could not communicate with the survivor.

“At the moment, the authorities don’t have clear information as to what they were doing or why they came here,” commune chief Yuon Ra said.

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