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Updated 12:25 AM ET October 24, 1999 |
By Juan Paliza
CUSCO, Peru (Reuters) - Peruvian authorities began
investigating Saturday how at least 26 schoolchildren, some as
young as four, died in a remote Andean village after eating
breakfast cereal apparently contaminated by insecticide.
Doctors at a hospital in the historic town of Cusco were
fighting to save 20 more children who collapsed after consuming
cookies and cereal mixed with milk at school Friday. Two of the
children were in serious condition, the hospital said.
While the official toll was 26, the school's director and
villagers told Reuters by telephone they knew of about four more
deaths -- some of whom died as they walked home.
Within half an hour of a communal breakfast for about 60
students aged up to 14 in the village of Huasac, children
started retching with stomach cramps and collapsing around the
school, witnesses said.
"The kids were screaming, vomiting and grabbing their
bellies. Some were dead, others were writhing on the grass and
still more were on the school patio. We had no idea what to
do," a sobbing village woman said in her native Qechua
language.
"About 20 minutes after eating the breakfast, the children
started convulsing, holding their stomachs and writhing around
with pain," school director Isaac Villena said.
In the chaos -- the worst tragedy involving children in Peru
for years -- those still healthy tried to lead ill pupils to
their mud-brick homes but some died on the way, villagers said.
Local police and doctors, who found traces of insecticide in
victims' stomachs, said they suspected the food was contaminated
by being prepared in containers previously used to mix
insecticide for fumigating crops.
President Alberto Fujimori sent a ministerial-level
commission to Cusco to investigate how the children came to eat
"food apparently mixed with a fatal insecticide," according to
a Government Palace statement.
The breakfast of cereal, milk and cookies was
government-donated and in part prepared by the children
themselves.
"Some children told me they noticed a strange taste in the
breakfast," Holguer Lovon, director of the Cusco hospital,
said.
Doctors said they expected more ill children to arrive
Saturday from the remote Paucartambo area around Huasac, some
hours by rough road from Cusco.
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(Oct 23 8:25 am ET)
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