Six children were killed when a security guard poured alcohol on them (Picture: AFP)

 

These are the heartbreaking photos showing the inside of a nursery where six children and their teacher were burned alive after being sprayed by alcohol.

 

It will be recalled that they were murdered by a security guard at the school who set them on fire before dying from his own injuries.

 

According to Metro UK, the tragedy happened at the Innocent People nursery in Janauba, a city in Brazil. Four children died at the scene while another two succumbed to their injuries at hospital.

 

 

 

Around 50 people were taken to hospital, 10 of them were in a serious condition and the mayor has decreed seven days of mourning.

 

The guard, who was aged about 50 and identified as Damiao Soares, died in hospital several hours after the incident, which left him with burns all over his body, Bruno Ataide Santos, director of the local hospital, said

 

About 80 children were in the nursery school when the attack occurred, prompting terrified parents to rush to the school, where they found one classroom reduced to ashes.

 

 

‘As the creche is near our house we heard noise and rushed over,’ Nelson de Jesus Silva, the father of one victim, told Globonews TV.

 

‘My little girl was so good, so smart,’ he said of his dead daughter Ana Clara Ferreira. Grief also struck Jane Kelly, the mother of Juan Miguel Soares.

 

‘I was thinking of changing nursery schools because we are preparing to move. I woke him up early to bring him here and when I saw him again he was dead in the hospital,’ Kelly said between sobs.

 

The dead children were aged four, the G1 news site reported.

 

Police visited the home of the suspect and his family members to try to determine a motive. But police superintendent Renato Nunes told the website of the Hoje em Dia newspaper that the guard had had mental health problems since 2014.

 

An injured pupil being rolled away

 

The guard had worked nights for at least eight years at the nursery school, where he was not directly in contact with the children.

 

Janauba’s mayor Carlos Isaildon Mendes said an even greater tragedy was narrowly averted.

 

‘This could have been worse because the babies’ room was in the hall next door. Evacuation would have been more difficult. As the children were bigger a lot of them were able to escape,’ the mayor explained.

 

Police searched the guard’s home and found many jugs of alcohol. He reportedly told his family this week – which includes the anniversary of the death of his father – that he was going to give a ‘gift’ to them and that he would die. Brazil’s President Michel Temer expressed his condolences on Twitter.

 

‘I am deeply saddened by this tragedy involving children in Janauba, and I want to express my solidarity with the families,’ Temer wrote.

 

As the father of a school-age child, Temer said he understood ‘this must be an extremely painful loss’ for the parents.