TWO children who were injured when a hand grenade they were playing with exploded last Friday, were discharged from Ngwelezane hospital at Empangeni on Wednesday. Three friends who were with them were killed in the explosion near Melmoth in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The five children, aged between 7 and 11, were playing in the veld near their home in the Qomintaba area when they found four hand grenades. One of them exploded, injuring the two and killing the three. The Empangeni bomb disposal unit searched the area, but there were no more grenades. Captain Pieter Strydom said the grenades were South African, and were very old. “They were M26 grenades, date-stamped 1975, but the firing mechanism was still in very good order,” he said.