Two backpackers have been found dead in a hostel in Cambodia hours after both women complained of feeling unwell.
The bodies of 22-year old Natalie Seymour, from Bedfordshire, and her travel partner, 27-year-old Abbey Gail Amisola, from Winnipeg, Canada were discovered on Monday.
The pair - who became friends after meeting while travelling in 2016 - had been staying at the Monkey Republic Hostel in the small city of Kampot, an up-and-coming destination for backpackers touring south-east Asia, when they were struck by what they believed to be the symptoms of food poisoning.
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In their final conversation, Seymour, a freelance make-up artist, told her mother via WhatsApp that she feeling unwell and that she and Amisola “might go get something to make her feel better”, Metro reports.
“The hotel manager was going up and down with drinks and told them they should go to a medical centre,” Seymour’s mother, Wendy Bowler, told the Daily Mirror. “They decided to sleep it off but never woke up again.”
Staff at the Monkey Republic Hostel said the two women had visited a pharmacy in the city to buy tablets for upset stomachs, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Shortly afterwards, the pair were found unresponsive by hostel staff and taken to hospital, but they could not be saved. A spokesman for the hostel said that the staff were “devastated” by the tragedy.
Seymour and Amisola’s families were informed of the deaths yesterday morning. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that it was offering support to the family of a British national who had died in Cambodia.
Cambodian authorities have launched an investigation into the deaths.
