Police are seeking four suspects after a group of armed robbers burst into a house in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district on Tuesday night, shot the homeowner in the chest and made off with thousands of dollars in cash and valuables.

Klol Thoeung, Lumphat district deputy police chief, said yesterday that the victim, Souk Borin, 27, was seriously injured by a gun shot to the chest, and had been sent to the provincial hospital after being found unconscious at the scene in Lumphat’s Lbaing I commune.

Thoeung said that according to an account given by Hor Voeut, 63, the victim’s mother, the group of four robbers, armed with an AK-47 and a pistol, entered the home after cutting through a chain-link fence behind the house, brandished their weapons and demanded the valuables, then shot Borin through the torso with the AK.

Voeut said in her statement to police that “after shooting my son, those robbers checked every room and collected all the money and jewellery, $6000 in total”.

“Then, they escaped via the fence behind my house immediately”, she said.

The police are currently trying to ascertain the identities of the suspects, Thoeung said.

In an interview yesterday, Voeut said that her son’s condition appeared to have stabilised, and that he was still staying at the provincial hospital.