According to local authorities in Hiep Duc District, the boys and girl aged between 6-9 were the children of Vo Hong Tuan, 38, and Nguyen Thi Loc, 33.
The children were having a summer holiday and the couple from An Phu Commune took them to play at the river bank while they caught snails and clams on the morning of July 5.
The father Vo Hong Tuan said in tears that he and his wife were searching for snails and clams in the river and hadn't paid close attention to their children for a while. When the couple started to notice their children's disappearance, they rushed to look for them and saw them in the river. Some local people came to help the couple take their children from the river but they were all dead.
"It was all our fault and now we've lost all our children," Tuan cried. "How can we carry on living?"
A neighbour Huynh Thi Son shared that the couple were unemployed and they did odd jobs to earn money to support their three small children and an elderly mother who was bed-ridden for 10 years following a traffic accident.
"Poor them," Son said. "We have raised money from neighbours and kind donors to hold a funeral for the children and support the family."
