A man in Battambang province’s Ek Phnom district was arrested and charged over the weekend for allegedly raping two of his daughters multiple times since the death of the girls’ mother two years ago, police said yesterday.

According to Lorm Lan, chief of Ek Phnom penal police, suspect Non Phal, 46, was arrested on Thursday, and charged with rape on Saturday.

“On Tuesday last week at 10pm, two girls fled their home and met with their uncle, and they refused to go back to their home when the uncle asked them to return,” Lan said.

“And then they told their uncle that their father raped them.”

Lan said that the girls’ uncle then took the girls to meet with the Daun Int village chief who, in turn, filed the complaint with the district police.

“The older daughter is 9 years old, and said she was raped two times, and the younger daughter is 7 years old, and was raped 10 times by their father in the house when he [was] drunk,” he said yesterday.

“The man threatened to beat and kill his daughters if they let anyone know,” Lan said, adding that a third daughter, 4, had not been raped.

Lan said the three girls had been sent to the provincial Department of Women’s Affairs, which will find them a place with an organisation that can provide necessary care to the sisters.