Two toddlers have drowned in buckets in separate incidents in the North West

Captain Amanda Funani said police and paramedics were called to a house in the Tswelelang informal settlement in Wolmaransstad on Wednesday when an 11-month-old baby drowned in a bucket used as a chamber pot.

The child’s mother was washing clothes when she realised she could no longer see her son.

She went inside to investigate and found the child head-down in the bucket. The toddler was declared dead on the scene.

Also on Wednesday, in Brakkuil village near Zeerust, a two-year-old drowned when its mother left it playing near two buckets of water that had been used for washing laundry.

When she returned, she found her child dead in one of the buckets.