Phnom Penh, Aug 13 (DPA) A private health clinic in Phnom Penh mistakenly declared a prematurely born baby dead on two occasions, local media reported.

The baby's father, Im Vannarith, told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper that he took his six-month pregnant wife to the Soriya Clinic Monday after she complained of abdominal pains.

Two hours later she gave birth to a baby boy, named Samnang, but he was declared dead by the clinic owner shortly afterwards.

'We were devastated,' Im Vannarith said, adding that he went to see his son's body in another room. 'I saw my baby was still breathing, so I asked the doctor to send him to hospital.'

But while in a car on the way to a children's hospital in Phnom Penh, the clinic nurse - who was accompanying the baby, his father and grandmother - told the driver to turn around, saying Samnang had died.