Ambiguity arises from the use of a possessive pronoun

Below is the first paragraph of a news item in an English daily.

A 3-year-old boy suffered burns on his left shoulder and right thigh when a neighbour allegedly threw hot water on him for playing behind his house in Taman Pasir Besar here.

The sentence is laden with ambiguity because of the use of the possessive pronoun (highlighted in bold) in the sentence. Is it referring to the boy or the neighbour (who is not known to be male or female up to this point)?

After reading the news fully, one is able to know that the neighbour is a man but it can only be logically inferred or assumed that the possessive pronoun in question is referring to the man.

The ambiguity could have been prevented if such first paragraph was written as " A 3-year-old boy suffered burns on his left shoulder and right thigh when a neighbour allegedly threw hot water on him for playing behind the neighbour's house in Taman Pasir Besar here."