South African police deny child trafficking report

South African police on Monday dismissed as a "lie" a report that foreign gangsters tried to smuggle 20 children, Thais and Mozambican, into South Africa.

Earlier French news agency AFP reported that the children were found in cardboard boxes and covered with blankets inside a truck at the border between Mozambique and South Africa.

"It's a blue lie. I would have been the first person to know about such an incident," Mpumalanga police spokesman Captain Leonard Hlathi told South African Press Association reported Tuesday.

AFP reported that that South African border police found 20 Mozambican and Thai children, between nine and 16 years-old, in a truck at the Komatipoort crossing.

The children were discovered "a week or two ago".

According to Hlathi: "If you say this happened a week ago, by now I would have heard something".

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