Police are investigating the brutal rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl in Kandal province after her body was discovered yesterday morning.

The girl was last seen alive around lunchtime on Tuesday at her home in Kien Svay district’s Koki commune. She was found face-down in a marsh yesterday morning.

“There are obvious signs the child was strangled to death and raped,” said James McCabe of the Child Protection Unit (CPU), which was called in to assist police with the investigation.

“There are several persons of interest being investigated, and DNA samples were recovered from the scene.”

Kien Svay Deputy District Police Chief Vong Se said the girl’s body was recovered from within a mostly abandoned compound that once housed military soldiers with disabilities.

Se said the girl was at home alone as her brothers went to school and her parents went to work in the fields after lunch.

“The father, after coming back from picking lotus . . . did not see her and started to worry,” Se said.

At 7:30pm, he filed a complaint to police, and a search was carried out until 2am. “They still did not find the girl; they only found her in the morning when fishermen reported to police,” Se said.

The victim’s father could not be reached yesterday. On Facebook, the CPU said they would continue to support the family.

“It goes without saying that the CPU and [National Police] will expend all available resources to hunt down this brutal killer. That is the least we can do for this innocent child,” the post read.