Two children drowned in Battambang City yesterday afternoon after a group of four friends aged from 11 to 13 went swimming unsupervised in a pond in the center of the city. Deputy city police chief In Ratha told Khmer Times yesterday that police were called after locals in Svay Por commune saw the children in distress.
 

“According to the bystanders, the children went into the water and they went deeper and deeper into the pond, but when the people saw no sign of them coming back up to breathe, they suspected they had drowned and ran to help,” he said. He said an 11-year-old boy and girl were pulled from the water alive, but a 10-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl were pronounced dead at the scene.
 

“None of the children could swim,” he noted, explaining that they had not told their parents they were going to swim. Man Sima, a provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, said that parental “carelessness” was usually to blame for children drowning.

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