A 3-year-old girl died on the way to Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital after eating cassava with her parents on Wednesday night, with local police saying the child succumbed to food poisoning.

Angkor Chum district police chief Man Sokhat yesterday identified the victim as 3-year-old Nan Neta, whose parents work as farmers in Siem Reap province’s Angkor Chum district.

According to Sokhat, Neta’s mother, Chan Sokha, 36, told him that on Wednesday that she and her husband spent the day harvesting cassava.

“Sokha said that when returned home, they brought home some cassava to cook for their dinner,” said Sokhat.

“An hour [after dinner], their daughter had a fever and started vomiting and getting diarrhoea at the same time. Seeing that, they asked their neighbours to bring her to the hospital on their motorbike. She died on the way.”

Sokha said that the child’s autopsy showed that she died of “food poisoning, meaning that she had too much of the cassava”.

When prepared improperly, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, cassava can be poisonous to humans.