Questions raised over why boys found dead in dumpster were not in school
Eight people, including government officials and school principals, have been disciplined over the deaths of five street children last week in Southwest China's Guizhou province, local authorities said on Tuesday.
Five boys, ranging in age from 9 to 13, were found dead in a dumpster in the Qixingguan district of Bijie, a mountainous city in Guizhou, by a trash collector on Friday morning.
On Thursday night, when they were believed to have died, it was raining in Bijie, with the temperature falling to as low as 6 C.
Based on autopsies, police confirmed that the children died from carbon monoxide poisoning after they burned charcoal for warmth in the dumpster, which is about 1.5 meters high, 1.3 meters wide and has an airtight lid.
Tang Xingquan, deputy head of Qixingguan district who was in charge of civil affairs, and Gao Shoujun, another deputy district head responsible for education, have been suspended from their posts and requested to submit an explanation for the incident to higher authorities, according to city government publicity officials.
Other officials, including Party chiefs of the district's education and civil affairs bureaus, have been relieved of their duties. Two local school principals were also sacked for failing to get the children back into school.
The five children were brothers and cousins, and their fathers were three brothers. Two of the fathers were working as trash collectors in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, at the time the tragedy happened.
Four of the boys had dropped out of school a long time ago, family members said.
Tao Jinyou, father of Tao Zhonglin, one of the deceased children, said his son had not gone to school since 2010. "Though the teacher tried to persuade him to return to school, he refused and went home even we forced him to go back to school," he said.
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