'What would you do if it was your baby?'

Emotionless, a heavily pregnant mother leans against a shack wall, rocking backwards and forwards.

Inside, her sister stares ahead.

Sisanda and Thokozani Mali's worst nightmare has unfolded. The bodies of their toddler daughters, Zandile, 3, and Yonelisa, 2, were found just hours before, half-naked and stuffed into a public toilet cubicle in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg.

For three days the mothers searched for their babies.

The toddlers had disappeared with an unknown man on Saturday night when their mothers went to a nearby spaza shop.

The search ended horribly yesterday when a woman found the girls, who are suspected to have been raped and mutilated.

Their tiny bodies were found only 300m from where five-year-old Anelisa Mkhondo's bludgeoned naked body was found on a rubbish dump last month.

Thokozani, who is nine months' pregnant, shakes her head when asked if she knows who took her daughter, Yonelisa.

"I do not know what to say . they have just told me. What do I say? What do I do? What would you do if it was your little baby?"

Fighting back tears, Sisanda says she and her sister were at the shop for only a few minutes on Saturday.

"They were playing outside the house with their friends . they were here then gone."

The murders have sparked paranoia and fury in the community.

They have outraged President Jacob Zuma: "These gruesome incidents of extreme torture and murder of our children do not belong to the society that we are continuously striving to build together. We condemn these murders."

Diepsloot mother Olorato Mokoena says she no longer trusts men around her three-year-old daughter, Tshiamo.

"I have become paranoid . scared with every horror story I hear.

"I am even cautious of the men in my life, whether it is my family or friends," she says.

Considered one of Gauteng's most dangerous townships, Diepsloot is rife with crime.

Days after Anelisa was found murdered on September 9, a pregnant 16-year-old was killed.

Yesterday, police took the parents of a newborn in for questioning over the alleged murder of their child.

Angry residents yesterday blocked roads with burning tyres.

"We are angry . police ignore us . we have to fend for ourselves," said community leader Masechaba Tsimo.

"Parents are terrified. They want police to take action. We want these killings to stop."

Yesterday afternoon, police deployed scores of additional officers to Diepsloot as residents continued to vent their anger.

Community leader Lizzie Chauke said police had sealed a shack in which investigators had found evidence of what is believed to have been the girls' murder.

"It was terrible. There was blood and flies everywhere. Police found their clothes, four blankets covered in blood, faeces, and a 'fake penis' and crowbar . they had blood on them," she said.

Anelisa's grandfather Thabo Mcubuse has not come to terms with his granddaughter's death.

"The pain is unbearable," he said. "We want police to catch the people who do this . the police have not told us what is happening.

"They drive past our house, but they never tell us what is happening."

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said detectives from the family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit were investigating the killings.

The team was being assisted by the SAPS investigative psychology unit, which investigates, among other crimes, serial murders.

"We are investigating whether there is a link between these murders and Anelisa Mkhondo's murder. A man was questioned for Anelisa's murder but released

"We suspect these children were strangled, but will only know - including whether they were raped and mutilated - once the postmortems are done."

Dlamini confirmed the girls were found close to where Anelisa's body was found. "Investigators have recovered evidence from a shack," he said.

Jackie Branfield of Operation Bobbi Bear, a child rights group, said: "A war against our children is taking place.

"If society does not do anything, then we are doomed."

Childline director Joan van Niekerk said though the government had sufficient laws and policies to protect children with, the challenge was in implementing them.

"Adults must take responsibility for keeping children safe. Give children back their childhood, rather than hold them responsible for protecting themselves."