A 5-YEAR-OLD girl was gored to death by her family’s water buffalo after she and her sister were late in releasing the animal for feeding, local residents said.

Lanh Sithon, chief of Pursat province’s Ansa Chambak commune, in Krakor district, said yesterday that 5-year-old Boeu Sreylen was attacked on Friday by a male buffalo calf as she and her sister attempted to drive it from its cage.

“The buffalo calf gored her forehead, face and ribs, killing her quickly,” Lanh Sithon said. “The vicious buffalo calf has since been killed by its owner.”

The victim’s father, 45-year-old Boeu Boeun, said he had been “careless” in letting his children tend to the livestock on their own. Despite the buffalo’s value, he added, the incident had given him no choice but to slaughter it.

“Of course the buffalo helped our family cultivate our land, but we could not dare to keep it because it killed my little girl,” Boeu Boeun said.

In a separate incident on July 24, a female water buffalo gored a man in Pursat’s Kandieng district to death as he was bathing the beast and her calf in a local pond, said Theang Leng, chief of the police inspection office in Kandieng. The victim, 22-year-old Nhem Bun Thy, was pierced in the neck and died on the way to hospital, Theang Leng said.

“This nasty female buffalo is still alive,” Theang Leng said. “I call for all livestock owners to take the security of their children seriously.”