Investigators for the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) have found that two recent deaths of garment sector workers were not related to working conditions.

The NSSF’s Sam Onn said yesterday that investigations into the deaths of Vorn Sitha, 39, and Nov Pas, 35, found their causes of death were not related to work.

Sitha was found dead at Kandal province’s New Archid garment factory on July 19, while Pas died of a lung disease at a hospital after fainting at Sangwoo factory in Kampong Speu less than a week later.

“If your company registers with my organisation . . . then [if staff members] have an accident or die, we are [financially] responsible,” Onn said on Sunday, declining then and yesterday to say whether families of Sitha or Pas would be compensated.

NSSF officials told the Post yesterday that family members must file a formal request to receive copies of the investigations. But Dave Welsh, country director of labour rights group Solidarity Center, said yesterday that he had never heard of such a requirement.

The deaths seem to have taken place too soon for investigators to have already ruled out work conditions as the cause of death in either case, Welsh added. “It seems pretty quick.”

Solidarity Center members plan on meeting with family and colleagues of the dead workers today, Welsh said.

Moeun Tola, head of the labour department at the Community Legal Education Center, said his group would also investigate the deaths.