The six young children had just shared snacks bought from a corner store when they began convulsing. The children, all of them under 8, died moments later, adding more victims to a wave of food poisoning that the authorities say has killed nearly two dozen children in a few months.

The South African government declared the poisonings a national disaster on Thursday, taking action after President Cyril Ramaphosa laid out the scale of the danger. At least 890 people have fallen sick, many of them children, he said in a televised address last week, adding that the cause was believed to be a pesticide used by business owners and vendors to fight a rat infestation in neglected townships. Expired and counterfeit food products have also been blamed by grieving family members and some residents.

The size of the outbreak, with deaths reported in provinces across the country, has forced South Africa’s leaders to reckon with the everyday consequences of dysfunctional government departments that are tasked with overseeing food safety, waste disposal, and small business regulations.

The government declared the emergency in a news conference held by half a dozen cabinet ministers, representing portfolios from health and education to agriculture and trade. Officials have also fanned out to inspect stores and to visit mourning families in townships where angry residents have turned on shop owners, many of whom are immigrants.

“These products are just as likely to be sold in shops owned by South Africans,” Mr. Ramaphosa said during his address, trying to curb the anger in a country where violence has in the past flared up between South Africans and migrants from other African countries and South Asia.

After the deaths of the six children in Johannesburg last month, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases found traces of terbufos, a hazardous pesticide used in agriculture, in the contents and on the packaging of a snack found with one of the children, Mr. Ramaphosa said. Terbufos, a colorless or pale yellow liquid used on crops, can be fatal if ingested or inhaled, or if it comes in contact with humans, according to the National Institutes of Health.

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• Food
• Children
• Kills
• Poisoning