Poison-drink kills Botswana boys

Authorities in Botswana have ordered an investigation into the deaths of at nine schoolboys after drinking a methanol-alcohol mixture.

The deputy director of education, Shatiso Tambula, said the students had stolen the poisonous mixture from the science laboratory of a boarding school in the south-western village of Kang, 400 kilometres from the capital, Gaborone.

Mr Tambula said that about 35 students from Matsha secondary school were "stable" in intensive care, and one boy had been flown to a hospital in the capital for urgent treatment.

Some of the youths, aged between 15 and 21, have gone blind and there are concerns that they may not recover their sight.

The alarm was raised when one of the boys went to the classroom drunk and nude, while the rest fell unconscious in the dormitory, where they were drinking a mixture of beer and methanol.