Cambodian woman charged with murder for tossing her toddler in river

A Cambodian woman was charged Saturday with premeditated murder for allegedly tossing her 1-year-old baby boy, whom she said was infected with HIV, into a river, officials said.

So Savoeurn, 20, claimed she is HIV-positive and had passed on the AIDS-causing virus to her baby, said Prak Chut, a district police chief in the southeastern Svay Rieng province.

She said she threw her son into the river because she could not afford food or medicine for him, Prak Chut said.

Prak Chut said So Savoeurn had no medical documents to prove her or her son's illness.

Police arrested her Thursday, two days after authorities found her son's body floating in the river.

Keo Sothea, a prosecutor at Svay Rieng provincial court, said he formally charged her Saturday with premeditated murder, which is punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

She is now behind bars awaiting trial, which must start within six months under Cambodian law.

Svay Rieng province is about 110 kilometers (70 miles) southeast of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Cambodia is one of the world's poorest countries, and about 35 percent of its 14 million people have incomes below the national poverty line of US$0.50 (euro0.37) a day.

It has one of the highest rates of HIV infection among people aged 15-49 in Southeast Asia, at 1.9 percent.

About 20,000 children under the age of 15 live with HIV or AIDS in Cambodia, out of a total of 123,000 people who are either infected with the virus or have the full-blown disease.