Police in Kratie are hunting the husband of the director of a child care centre, who allegedly repeatedly raped three young girls staying at the centre in his wife’s absence.

According to Huort Lemheang, head of Kratie provincial police’s serious crime office, Nhor Thy, 37, of Chhlong district, abused the girls, aged between 10 and 12, in early September.

The attacks, said Lemheang, took place at a centre connected to the Church of the Promise of the Fourth Gospel in Chhlong district, which cares for 12 poor children from the province, including five girls, and is run by Thy’s wife Nev Saihuor.

While Saihuor was away at a workshop in Kratie town, investigating officer Duong Sothy said, Thy groomed the girls with money and food and then raped them, sometimes twice a day, over four days.

On returning, Saihuor said she learned of the attacks and filed a complaint, prompting her husband to flee.

Lemheang said authorities had some leads on Thy’s whereabouts.

Outraged, the mother of one of the victims, Khouth Neng, 33, said she had sent her daughter to the centre to get an education.

“I want the rapist to be condemned to life imprisonment,” Neng said.

Su Ser, director of Kratie’s Provincial Religious Department, said that he was assessing the future of the centre in light of the “terrible, unacceptable act”.