After receiving worldwide attention, two Bengal tiger cubs who were breast-fed by a Yangon housewife have died of heat and dehydration.

Hla Htay, a mother of a baby boy, answered a plea for help from Yangon's zoo and fed the cats three times a day after they were rejected by their tigress mother.

Unfortunately, efforts to strengthen the male and female cub - born March 17th - failed under the severe temperatures of the season.

The male died on May 3rd, six days after his sister perished.

"The main causes of death were scorching weather and lack of milk from the natural mother," Dr. Khin Maung Win of the Yangon Zoological Garden told the Myanmar-language Interview Journal.

"We did all we could to save them. They were kept in an air-conditioned room, but their livers could not accept human milk," he said.

Three cubs were born at the zoo, but their mother killed one and refused to nurse the others. After bottle feeding failed, the zoo put out a call for breastfeeding mothers.