The body of 7-year-old Mey Srey Mao was found twisted and decomposing in a ditch in Kandal province’s Muk Kampoul district yesterday, 12 days after her parents reported her missing to local police, according to Prek Anchanh commune police chief Sam Sophal.

Srey Mao was living with her parents, workers at a nearby brick factory in Prek Anchanh commune’s Krom village, when she went missing on the afternoon of April 22.

According to James McCabe – director of the Child Protection Unit (CPU), which is assisting Kandal provincial police in the investigation – Srey Mao’s body was found by a man looking for wild bees in Kandal village, just 500 metres from her home.

“From the way her body has been twisted and the state of her clothes, it looks like she was raped,” said McCabe. “We’re treating it as a homicide and likely rape.”

Muth Chanthan, a Muk Kampoul district police officer, said Srey Mao was found wearing a yellow T-shirt and naked from the waist down.

Chanthan said an autopsy is being performed to determine the cause of death by technical police drawn from the district and provincial police forces, along with Interior Ministry employees.

He added that police have yet to draw up a list of suspects, but will do so once autopsy results are confirmed.