A Limpopo man killed his two children following a dispute with their mother and later hanged himself after he fled the scene, Polokwane police said in a statement on Sunday.

"It is alleged that the couple had a domestic dispute last year until they separated. The woman took her two children and went to her parental home in Sekgosese near Giyani," said spokesperson Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe.

The two deceased children, aged 5 and 8, went back to Mankweng on Saturday to visit their father for the school holidays. Upon their arrival, he phoned their mother and a conflict ensued.

"Subsequent to this telephonic conflict, the father allegedly turned against the children and hanged them one by one in separate rooms before he fled the scene," Ngoepe said.

Police were summoned and launched a manhunt against the man, Samuel Kgatle, 38, whom they later found hanged in a house in the area. 

The acting provincial commissioner of the South African Police Service in Limpopo, Major General Jan Scheepers, has since condemned the brutal killings perpetrated against children in some parts of the province.