\\\'Pesticides killed 8 children\\\'

IEDCR, the government’s disease control arm, has found pesticides and chemicals sprayed on litchis responsible for the death of eight children in Dinajpur in 21 days. “We became certain after visiting houses of those children and the litchi orchards and conducting necessary tests that their deaths were caused by their contact with litchis sprayed with pesticides,” IEDCR’s Director Mahmudur Rahman said on Wednesday. The children, aged between one-and-a-half, and six years, died between May 29 and Jun 18 at Dinajpur Medical College Hospital with almost identical symptoms. The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) conducted tests to determine the cause of their deaths. Director Rahman told bdnews24.com the children were affected when they went near the litchi orchards, where pesticides had been sprayed. “Presence of poisonous pesticides was found in the blood of the dead children and in the litchis,” he said. A team of researchers visited the houses of the children in Biral, Birganj, Kaharole and Khansama upazilas following the deaths. Rahman said they found houses of all the children adjacent to litchi orchards where they would move about and eat litchis from the trees there, according to bdnews24,com.