A 12-year-old person is suspected of poisoning two primary school girls to death in Hengyang county, Central China's Hunan Province, local authorities said Saturday.
Police in Hengyang announced Saturday on its official Sina Weibo account that two girls died of drinking beverage mixed with pesticides on Wednesday.
But they have declined to identify the suspect's gender or if they have arrested the person.
The case is still under investigation, according to the police.
Police said the suspect is an acquaintance of the two sisters and confessed that pesticides were deliberately placed in the beverage, without specifying the motive, the Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
Police said they found one of the dead girls foaming at her mouth on a road in Hengyang after receiving a report from local residents on Wednesday. Half an hour later, the local health center reported another girl's death for poisoning.
Local media reports previously claimed that the two sisters, who were 14 and 8, respectively, died after eating food in the garbage heap that contained pesticides due to hunger.
According to Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, the girls' mother lives on collecting garbage and always forgets to cook for them. The two would sometimes eat the garbage.
China has seen several similar violent cases over the years. In 2013, a 10-year-old girl's attack on an 18-month-old toddler in Chongqing shocked the public, as video footage showed the girl throwing the toddler to the ground in an elevator and kicked him several times.
