THREE children have been found dead in an old refrigerator in Atamelang township near Delareyville in North West.

Residents found the children - two boys, both aged four, and a three-year-old girl -on Friday afternoon.

The search for the children had begun on Thursday when their parents couldn't find them.

Colonel Tshupetso Mojahi, the station commander of the Atamelang police station, said the kids were playing in a yard littered with old furniture.

"It seems they were going in and out of the fridge and then decided to go in together."

Somehow the children were locked inside and couldn't get out.

They suffocated.

Their parents went to the police station when they couldn't find the children on Thursday, Mojahi said.

On Friday, the police went back to the yard where the children had been playing, and found the bodies.

Mojahi said they were still investigating.