SAHIWAL: Two siblings lost their lives due to suffocation after accidentally getting locked inside an iron drum while playing hide-and-seek at their home at Chak 60/5-L, Burjwala.

The victims were identified as three-year-old Abdullah and five-year-old Amina, children of Abdul Ghaffar, an agricultural labourer and resident of Burjwala.

According to reports, their parents, Abdul Gaffar and his wife, had gone out of home to harvest wheat, leaving them at home with their cousins.

Abdullah and Amina were playing hide-and-seek with children when they decided to hide inside an iron drum used for storing flour so that nobody could find them. Tragically, the drum’s lid accidentally fell and locked, preventing them from escaping. Despite their efforts, the children were unable to open the lid from inside, and their friends failed to locate them.

When Abdullah and Amina’s parents returned home in the afternoon and began searching for them, they initially suspected that their children had been kidnapped as no trace could be found. It was only in the evening, when Gaffar opened the iron drum to retrieve flour that he found lifeless bodies of his children.

Rescue 1122 was called to the scene but the children had already passed away, approximately four to five hours earlier.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2025