A 3-YEAR-OLD boy from Koh Kong’s Khemarak Phoumin city was sent to the provincial Department of Social Affairs yesterday after his mother attempted to stab him in the throat, rights activists and police said.

Khat Toyno, police chief of Khemarak Phoumin city, said the boy would be “at risk” if left with his mother, and that it was in the best interest of the boy to be placed in a new home as far from his mother as possible.

The mother, he said, was thought to be a mentally ill alcoholic with a history of violence. He said she allegedly had beaten her son often with a stick.

The abuse turned uglier last Wednesday when the mother attacked the boy with a knife while intoxicated.

He was saved by a neighbour’s quick intervention, said Chan Chamroen, a local representative for local rights group Adhoc, in charge of women’s and children’s issues.

“I can hardly believe a mother would do that to her son,” she said.

“But she used to have three husbands and the last husband left her recently, so she got drunk and attacked the boy.”

She said the woman had nine other children who lived with their father.

Khat Toyno said the mother signed a contract with the local authority relinquishing custody of the boy, and that the boy was in the care of the

Department of Social Affairs, where he would be kept until a new home could be found for him.

You Chheng Lou, deputy director of Koh Kong’s Social Affairs Department, could not be reached for comment.