Across the country people wait with bated breath for the arrival of Dinajpur's litchi crop. Local children are likewise excited to sample the sweet fruit, so much so that they are easily tempted to wander into any nearby orchard to savour a few samples. But if the children venture into the orchards after they've been sprayed with pesticide, it's a trip that can prove fatal.

"My daughter is just alive," says Parveen Akter from Purba Sadipur village in Dinajpur's Kaharol upazila. "She likes to sit in my lap. She can't walk unassisted and she doesn't speak anymore. She's stopped growing." Yet ultimately 4-year-old Nishi and her family can be considered fortunate. Of the 12 children hospitalised after Dinajpur's litchis orchards were sprayed with pesticide last year, Nishi is the sole survivor.

Nishi's tragedy began quite unceremoniously last year when she went to eat fruit in a nearby litchi orchard. On the following morning, as soon as she woke she asked for water; and when she drank it, it made her sick. Nishi's father sold all the family's belongings trying to save his daughter.

The head paediatrician of Dinajpur Medical College Hospital Dr. Wares says that all of the children brought to the hospital from 30 May 2015 with suspected pesticide poisoning were aged between 2 and 6 years old. Their symptoms included severe fever, convulsions and unconsciousness.

The deaths of eleven of those children brings the total number of child fatalities linked to litchi orchard pesticide poisoning in Dinajpur over the past several years to 23.

Experts from the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research in their report findings following an inquiry into the child deaths notes that orchards are found near all of the victims' homes.

It's a situation that has litchi farming communities distressed. This year, several orchardists have set up signboards with warnings to alert people to the use of pesticides. One orchardist anonymously told The Daily Star that he has reduced his pesticide use.

The department of agriculture extension meanwhile has installed sex pheromone traps on 100 litchi trees at Mashimpur in Dinajpur sadar upazila and at Robipur in Biral upazila in search of a safer alternative. While farmers are reporting promising results from the trial, the majority of orchards continue to rely on pesticides.

"You can smell the pesticides in the air," says Rafiqul Alam, resident of Sadullahpara village in Birganj upazila.

Despite the danger, during a visit to any of the litchi growing villages, a common sight is likely to be children roaming and playing under the litchi trees, collecting and eating the fallen fruit.

Even parents who are aware of the problem and want to protect their children find it hard. "It's absolutely difficult to guard children all the time," says Chan Mia, also from Sadullahpara. He lost his 5-year-old son during last year's litchi season and is desperate to protect his other children.

His neighbour Mohsina agrees. "It's not easy for everybody to stay at home when the pesticide is sprayed," she says, demanding orchardists fence their crops to prevent intrusion by children.

Mostafizur Rahman, a department of agriculture extension official in Birganj says he has held meetings with orchardists and litchi traders in an attempt to at the least systematise pesticide use. He says that the spraying of pesticides is closely monitored.

His counterpart in Biral upazila, Ashraful Islam, says they are also closely monitoring litchi growers' activities. "We have decided to run a mobile court to deal with anyone who violates the warnings of the pesticide companies on how their product should be applied." Litchis should not be picked within two weeks of being sprayed.

Yet until safer alternatives can be found and applied on a large scale, families in litchi-growing communities are unlikely to be spared the risk of tragedy, of child illness and death.

Dinajpur hosts 2,000 litchi orchards covering nearly 5,000 hectares. About half of these orchards are in Biral upazila.