India protests at school food poisoning deaths

Twenty-two children have died after eating a free lunch feared to contain poisonous chemicals at an Indian primary school, officials said Wednesday, as the tragedy sparked angry street protests.

Another 30 children are still in hospital after consuming the meal of lentils, vegetables and rice cooked at a village school in the dirt-poor state of Bihar on Tuesday.

"After 21 deaths, we have just heard that one more child has died while undergoing treatment," the state’s health secretary, Vyas Ji, told AFP, as suspicion focused on the possible presence of insecticide in the food.

Twenty of the children, aged between four and 10, were buried near the school in the village of Masrakh on Wednesday morning.

At a hospital in Chhapra, the main town of Saran district where the school is located, there were emotional scenes as children, their limbs dangling and heads lolling, were admitted.

Other children, lying listless on stretchers, were placed on intravenous drips amid chaotic scenes at the hospital. Outside, inconsolable relatives wept.

- AFP