Two Chinese kindergarten students die after rival school poisons yogurt

Two schoolgirls have died in China after eating yoghurt poisoned by the head of a rival kindergarten, according to state media reports.

The Xinhua News Agency said the girls' grandmother found the yoghurt, which was left in a bag with a pile of notebooks, on the road near their school in Pingshan county.

She took the books and yoghurt back home and let the girls, aged five and six, have it when they came back from school.

But as they played outside after drinking it they suddenly started foaming at the mouth and collapsed to the ground.

The children were rushed to the local hospital where they began fitting, but they later died.

It is believed the girls were sisters named Lu and Flowers.

Chinese media reported six-year-old Lu died on the way to hospital, while her younger sister Flowers died a week later.

Hebei Youth Daily said their grandmother, who it named as Renshu Ting, also tasted some of the yoghurt and spent a few days in hospital.

Police said the yoghurt was poisoned with tetramine - a rat posion.

Officers believe poisoning was motivated by competition for students between the schools, media reports said.

Reports claimed the woman headteacher confessed to injecting rat poison into the yoghurt and asking a man to place it with notebooks on the road to the rival kindergarten, which is in Hebei province. 

She and the man who allegedly helped her put the yoghurt on the road were arrested after the incident on April 24.

There was no response from police or Pingshan county's information office last night.

Five years ago, thousands of Chinese children were poisoned when the industrial chemical melamine was added to baby milk powder to make it appear to contain more protein.

Six children died and tens of thousands were made ill by the incident. 

Death sentences were handed down to people found responsible for adding the melamine to the milk.