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3 MEN DIE IN CONTAINER

DEADLY GADGET: Captain Shado Mashobane with the brazier the tree dead men are believed to have taken into the container in which they slept. Pic. Len Kumalo. © Sowetan.
DEADLY GADGET: Captain Shado Mashobane with the brazier the tree dead men are believed to have taken into the container in which they slept. Pic. Len Kumalo. © Sowetan.

Ntwaagae Seleka

Ntwaagae Seleka

Three construction workers were found dead inside a shipment container in Vereeniging yesterday after apparently inhaling carbon monoxide fumes.

Constable Tebogo Lephoto said the men, all Mozambicans, may have inhaled the fumes from a brazier which they had left burning inside the container while they slept.

Lephoto said: "We suspect that they tried to warm themselves with the brazier while sleeping.

"The container has no windows and their chances of surviving were slim."

Police have opened an inquest docket.

When Sowetan visited the scene yesterday, colleagues of the dead men and fellow countrymen, Alfred Mathusi and Antonio Bok, were still in shock.

The two men were holding hands next to the brazier.

Mathusi said they last saw the three on Wednesday night when they all sat around a fire.

"We talked and laughed and could not foresee that it would be our last night together," said Mathusi.

He said the three men left at about 9pm to go to their container. They took one brazier and Mathusi and Bok took the other.

"At about 6am we went and knocked at their container but they did not answer," said Bok.

They went back two hours later and opened the door after knocking several times.

"We thought they were asleep because they were still covered with their blankets," said Bok.

He said when they removed the blankets they were shocked to discover that all three were dead.

"We are still shocked by their deaths," said Mathusi.

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