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Mashonaland East provincial police spokesperson Inspector Bulisani Bhebhe said the primary school children drowned in Beatrice. He said Kudzai Musonza (seven) of Farm 47 in Beatrice was on his way home from Muda Primary School in the company of a friend.
The two tried to cross the flooded Muda River but Musonza was swept by the heavy current.
His body has since been retrieved.
The other incident, Insp Bhebhe said, occurred in the same area after Owen Mavhunga (11) attempted to cross Mazowe River and was swept away.
He was with his mother, Sylvia Nhoto, and his body was also retrieved.
In Esigodini’s Mpisini Village, Thabisiwe Mguni and Renee Ncube were swept away in a flooded stream.
Mguni reportedly tried to cross first but was swept away by the current.
Ncube plunged in to help his friend but was carried away. A seven-year-old boy saw what had happened and he told other villagers about it.
A search party retrieved the bodies.
Meanwhile, a Juru man drowned while trying to cross Nyamutumbu Stream in Chief Chikwaka’s area.
Edward Mufurira (47), who was ill, drowned when he followed a relative who had left him at a bus stop while he went to look for an ox-drawn cart to ferry him home.
He drowned in Nyamutumbu stream.
Last week a 24-year-old woman from Bulawayo drowned in the Limpopo River along with a Beitbridge man who was assisting her illegally cross the border into South Africa.
Her husband and their three-year-old son managed to get out of the river and made a police report.
A fortnight ago two Zvishavane men drowned in the Limpopo while trying to cross into South Africa.
Since the onset of the rainy season more than 50 people have drowned while trying to cross flooded rivers countrywide.
Police say about eight people drown every week while crossing rivers, swimming, fishing, canoeing, fetching water and bathing.