A two-year-old boy and his 10-week-old sister died in a fire which appeared to have started inside their shack in the absence of their parents in Vosloorus on Tuesday.
Emergency services received the distress call at 10am and firefighters were dispatched to the Colgate informal settlement, said City of Ekurhuleni spokesperson William Ntladi.
According to preliminary reports, their mother had been cooking on a paraffin stove before leaving the children to attend to something away from home.
When they saw the fire, community members formed a relay system with buckets of water. They managed to extinguish the blaze, but failed to do so in time to save the children.
Ntladi said the crew found “two tiny bodies lying motionless on the metal remains of a mattress”.
The city is helping the family with disaster relief.
TimesLIVE
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