Three children have died and 85 are seriously ill at a remote mountain village in northern Peru after eating a school meal contaminated with pesticide.
Officials say the children were being fed by the National Food Assistance Programme, which gives food to schools in the poorest parts of the country, the BBC reports. The three dead were aged between six and 10.
It is thought the meal of rice and fish was prepared in a container that previously held pesticide. Three adults have also been taken ill.
The mass poisoning happened in the village of Redondo in the Cajamarca region, about 750km north of the Peruvian capital, Lima.
In a similar case in 1999, 24 children died in a village near Cusco in southern Peru after eating food contaminated by pesticide.
