Girl commits suicide

TOKYO (AFP): An 11-year-old Japanese girl burned herself to death after being scolded by her mother for untidiness, police said yesterday.

The primary school pupil in Numazu, Shizuoka prefecture, poured kerosene over herself and lit a fire with a lighter outside an apartment building near her home Friday evening, police officials said.

The girl was already dead when firemen, alerted by a neighbor, arrived at the site, police said. The case is being treated as suicide.

The girl, who was living with her parents, grandparents and two siblings, had left home after being scolded for failing to tidy up her things, the officials said, adding that she had apparently taken kerosene from her home.