A 38-year-old man killed his two young children and then committed suicide in his house on the Noordpoortstraat in Middelburg on Sunday evening.

The alarm was raised by the children’s mother when the 5-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl did not return from a visit to their father.
The mother called the police and then went round to the house with her former step-father where they discovered the three bodies. The couple had been divorced for a year and the next door neighbour told the AD newspaper that he was a stable and happy man.
Police have not yet said how the children died.