BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
Two toddlers from Lupane died on Monday when a thatched bedroom house they were sleeping in caught fire after their grandmother allegedly forgot to switch off a paraffin light.
According to Matabeleland North police memo, the two three year-old toddlers, both girls, died due suffocation and severe burns as their grandmother had gone to harvest some mangoes while they remained asleep in the family bedroom.
“On 5th of December 2022 at around 8am and at Evelyn Ndlovu’s homestead Dakiwe village, Matshiya ward 15, two female children, Silethemba and Silethokuhle Sibanda aged three years, passed on due to serious burns sustained during a fire incident,” the police memo read.
” On the 4th of December Ndlovu retired to bed with her two grandchildren in a thatched bedroom hut.
“(The following day) at around 6am Ndlovu together with a neighbour relative Sibusisiwe Sithole (40) of the same village went to the garden to harvest mangoes and left the two children asleep in the thatched bedroom hut.”
Police said that at around 7am, a neighbor Margaret Mudimba of Meluleki Ncube’s homestead discovered that the bedroom hut was on fire and advised his child to go and alert Ndlovu who was in the garden.
“On arrival at the scene Ndlovu found the bedroom hut already gutted down by fire and could not help the children who were inside the hut,”
“The bodies of the two minors were found under the mattress and were burnt beyond recognition,”
“Scene was attended and no foul suspected.
“It is suspected that a paraffin lamp used as a source of light in the bedroom hut might have caused the fire. ”
Police advised parents and guardians to take extra care and monitor the movements of young children so as to avoid such incidents.