PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Four Cambodians including a four-year-old boy have been swept to their deaths in flash flooding in recent days as heavy rains battered the country, officials said Saturday.
Three men drowned in different affected provinces, while a child disappeared during flooding in the Phnom Penh area and is presumed dead, the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) said.
“The floods hit many parts of Cambodia, but at the moment they have subsided,” said Keo Vy, director of NCDM.
Bad weather also forced officials at Cambodia’s UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal to temporarily relocate high-profile Khmer Rouge leaders currently awaiting trial for crimes including genocide during the “Killing Fields” era.
A court spokesman said Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea had been taken to a new building at an undisclosed location.
Former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, who was sentenced in July to 30 years imprisonment for war crimes and crimes against humanity, was also among those moved.
