South African police have arrested three people in connection with the murders of two toddlers which triggered several days of rioting in Diepsloottownship near Johannesburg, the BBC reported.
 

The bodies of the girls — a two year old and a three year old — were found dumped in public toilets Tuesday, three days after they went missing while playing with friends outside their home.

Lt. Col.Lungelo Dlamini, a police spokesman,.said three people had been taken in for questioning and that police were also searching for a fourth person.

Diamini said authorities were also investigating a possible link between the toddler murders and the slaying of a five-year-old girl whose body was found in the same area last month.

He said police were investigating the possibility that the girl had been strangled and sexually violated, the South African Press Association reported.

After the bodies of the two- and three-year-old were discovered on Tuesday, riots erupted in Dieplsloot, an impoverished township, with residents reportedly burning tires and barricading roads and attacking journalists.

Foreign-owned shops were reportedly attacked and looted as angry residents accused the police of failing to protect the community.

President Jacob Zuma urged them not to take the law into their own hands.

"These gruesome incidents of extreme torture and murder of our children do not belong to the society that we are continuously striving to build together," South Africa's Sowetan newspaper quoted him as stating."We condemn these murders in the strongest possible terms."

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