Langkawi police chief Shariman Ashari said police received a report on the deaths of the two boys, identified as Nizambudin Jamaludin, aged 4, and Ngei, 2, at about 6.15pm.

“Preliminary investigation found that at 5.30pm, the victims’ 36-year-old father saw the two boys at the dump site, staggering before he lifted both and rushed to a nearby neighbour’s house.

“The father found that the mouths of his two children were foaming and a few minutes later his boys were no longer breathing,” he said in a statement here today.

Shariman said the father had been out doing odd jobs at the time. “They do not have a house and are only squatting at a neighbour’s house in the village,” he said.

He said the remains of the two boys were sent to hospital for post-mortem examination.