Local Filipino delicacy kills 25

Grieving and poverty-stricken, the families of 25 Filipino children poisoned by a cassava snack they ate at school were preparing for a mass burial in their remote village.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered officials to release funds to the families after hearing that some were too poor to afford wooden coffins for their children.

About 90 people, most of them children between 6 and 13 years, remained in hospitals on Bohol Island in the central Philippines a day after eating the local delicacy during a mid-morning school break.

The victims may have been poisoned by cyanide in the cassava which should be boiled or dried before cooking.