A kennel of canines, believed to have been stray dogs have attacked and mauled to death, two children in Southern Tanzania
The minors, both boys and members of the same family, were on their way, walking to school at around 9.00 am in the morning, when they came across the pack of dogs, idling along their path.
The incident, as far as the official police statement is concerned, occurred in the Katandala Ward of Sumbawanga Municipality in the Rukwa Region.
According to police reports, the canines started chasing the boys and while trying to run to safety, they stumbled and eventually fell down.
The dogs, whose number was not readily known, proceeded to gnaw at the poor and helpless children whose cries for help went futile as there were no grown-ups nearby.
Sources from Sumbawanga say by the time the young boys got rescued from the dogs, they were already dead, though police reports say they died while undergoing treatment at the Rukwa regional referral medical center.
The victims of the dog attacks were named as Faidh Daudi, aged 13 years and his sibling, Issa Siku who was eleven by the time of his death.
The two children happened to be both pupils of the Isia Primary School of Sumbawanga, in the Rukwa Region of Southern Tanzania.
Their deaths sent shockwaves around the neighbourhood and country as whole because while cases of dogs biting people are common in Tanzania and around East Africa, incidents of the canines killing people remain rare and far apart.
But the police in Sumbawanga believe that the dogs that attacked and killed the school pupils were kept animals and therefore had owners and the cops are already looking for them.
However, most parts of Tanzania are filled with stray dogs that usually move in packs; particularly during mating seasons and these canines have the tendency of getting hostile to people especially young boys who sometimes try to hurl stones at them.
In Arusha, Mwanza and Dar-es-salaam cities, sometimes the Municipal Councils cull the stray canines by sending around veterinary officers to shoot at the animals that loiter around dangerously in the streets.
This is usually done to control rabies infections.
But in other parts of the country, usually the municipal councils there complain of limited funds to execute the operations against stray dogs.