BULAWAYO – Two children aged 13 and five died on Friday after a suspected grenade explosion while they were washing dishes in Nyamandlovu, Matabeleland North.
Bomb investigators from the army were called to Majindane Village 3 in Nyamandlovu’s ward 10 after the explosion which killed siblings Happiness Mthethwa and her young brother, Thabiso.
Police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said investigators were still to determine what caused the explosion.
“We don’t want to speculate on what it was, and we want to wait for investigations to be completed,” Nyathi said on Saturday.
The two children were doing dishes at around 11AM on Friday when police say a huge explosion lifted and threw them some five meters away.
Their father Thembani Mthethwa raced out of the house to find his children dead, their limbs torn.
Their mother, who was working in a vegetable garden nearby, also ran home to be greeted by the horrific scene.
Fragments of the explosive device were collected by the army. Locals believe the explosion was caused by a grenade, but how it got to the home is a mystery. Happiness and Thabiso were “always at home”, the family told investigators, ruling out the possibility that the children picked up the explosive device – suspected left behind during the war – in the bush.
