Two children were killed and six others were injured in eastern DR Congo after a grenade they uncovered during a bird hunt exploded, local officials said on Tuesday.
A group of teenagers were hunting for birds in a field near Ndunda on the Ruzizi plain in South Kivu province on Monday when they came discovered the grenade.
“These children picked up the device that they confused with a toy, unaware that it was a grenade, and it exploded,” said Gerard Matibu Mupanzi, a local official.
He went on to say that one three-year-old child died in the blast on Monday afternoon, and an 11-year-old boy died the next morning from his injuries.
The collision injured six more persons, three of them were children.
Lieutenant Marc Elongo, a Congolese military spokesperson, told AFP that an army team had gone to Ndunda to investigate the event.
Over 120 armed groups roam the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, many of them the result of regional battles that erupted at the turn of the century.
Unexploded ordinances, according to Elie Vagheni, who works for the United Nations Mine Action Service in the region, are the fault of armed groups.