Cape Town – Two toddlers tragically died, and two others fell ill, allegedly after consuming snacks purchased at a minibus taxi rank in the West Rand on Wednesday.
The children, aged between two and seven, are believed to have suffered from food poisoning, police said on Thursday.
Police have opened two inquest dockets, and the exact cause of death is pending postmortem results.
“The cause of death is unknown pending postmortem results. Police investigations continue,” Times Live quoted police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi as saying.
This incident follows a similar one earlier in the week in Gauteng, where two six-year-olds died and two others were hospitalised after consuming biscuits and juice from a spaza shop in Naledi, Soweto.
Police in Soweto said they had initiated an inquest into the deaths which occurred under mysterious circumstances on Sunday night.
According to EWN, the Naledi community in Soweto suspected that the children fell ill after consuming biscuits from the spaza shop.
Two more children were reportedly in critical condition in the hospital.
Gauteng police stated that the exact cause of death remains unknown.
“The seven-year-old one told us they bought the biscuits from the Pakistanis, and as children, they shared the biscuits among themselves, and that’s how all four of them got sick,” police spokesperson Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
