DPA
Phnom Penh - A Cambodian toddler died after she was doused with acid as she slept at home beside her grandmother, who was also badly injured, a non-government official said Wednesday. Thai Tim, 3, and her grandmother Thorm Saroeun, 46, were asleep at home when an unknown attacker threw acid over the pair, said Nora Lindstrom, project manager for Cambodia Acid Survivor's Charity.
"Sadly the little girl died before she reached us. Children are rarely the targets of acid attacks, but they are frequently victims. We don't know why the family was attacked, but it is a disturbingly common happening," Lindstrom said.
"The grandmother is weak but stable, but it's hard to give a prognosis now - burns have a very high infection rate, and she has burns to a bit over 30 per cent of her body including her face, neck and torso so we can't say at this stage. It's serious."
Lindstrom said the acid appeared to have been a particularly corrosive type, but the sheer amount would have been enough to do serious damage whatever type it had been. No motive has yet been established.
"Any acid will eat through human flesh and bones. The damage is usually extensive and always devastating. I don't know how a person can do this to another person," she said.
Acid is cheap and easily bought in Cambodia and therefore often used as a weapon. Scores of people become victims of acid attacks each year, most usually because of disputes of land or lovers. The attack happened last week, Lindstrom said.
The grandmother was being treated for free by Lindstrom's sister organization, the Children's Surgical Center, in Phnom Penh.
"Sadly the little girl died before she reached us. Children are rarely the targets of acid attacks, but they are frequently victims. We don't know why the family was attacked, but it is a disturbingly common happening," Lindstrom said.
"The grandmother is weak but stable, but it's hard to give a prognosis now - burns have a very high infection rate, and she has burns to a bit over 30 per cent of her body including her face, neck and torso so we can't say at this stage. It's serious."
Lindstrom said the acid appeared to have been a particularly corrosive type, but the sheer amount would have been enough to do serious damage whatever type it had been. No motive has yet been established.
"Any acid will eat through human flesh and bones. The damage is usually extensive and always devastating. I don't know how a person can do this to another person," she said.
Acid is cheap and easily bought in Cambodia and therefore often used as a weapon. Scores of people become victims of acid attacks each year, most usually because of disputes of land or lovers. The attack happened last week, Lindstrom said.
The grandmother was being treated for free by Lindstrom's sister organization, the Children's Surgical Center, in Phnom Penh.
5 comments:
This is despicably sick. It illustrate how aweful, we as Khmer in general can turn on each other. We all need to help change this cycle of violence.
the title sends shivers to my spine. This is one of the lowest and worst crime any human can partake in. The perpertrator should be ashame to be human.
you know, people in Cambodia have a lot of healing to do. People there seem to hold on to so much resentment, revenge, hatred, grief, sadness and so on. Can the world help to heal the people in Cambodia. Please teach and guide the young people, who are actually the future of the world to be more educated, more happy and especially to be optimistic about the future and their life. this non-sense got to stop.
The criminal 2 legged animal when caught deserves to be stoned to death and feed the corpse to the crocodiles.
Is this the new Cambodian culture under AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave leadership? It is okay to kill a baby just to get even?
This is breaking my heart!
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