A pair of newborn twin sisters were tragically killed in Brazil by their family dog in an incident that their family is saying was motivated by “jealousy.”

The Sun reported that Elaine Novais left her one month-old babies Anne and Analú alone for just a few minutes while she talked to a neighbor in Piripá on June 23 when her Labrador-Foxhound mix attacked them.

Novais, 29, heard the babies screaming in the bedroom and managed to drag the dog away from them, but not before he fatally injured them both.

A neighbor who is a nursing assistant rushed over to help the girls before they were taken to Maria Pedreira Barbosa Municipal Hospital, where they each were pronounced dead.

As soon as she heard the twins were dead, Novais collapsed in shock and grief.

“This has devastated the parents,” said neighbor Maria de Jesus.

“I pray that they don’t fall into a depression but it will be difficult because the children were beautiful, really loved and desperately wanted.”

Novais and her husband Regis had owned the dog for five years, and while he was typically a gentle canine, an unnamed relative said he may have felt “left out” after the twins were born.

“We think that with the arrival of the twins, the animal no longer had the attention and affection of its owners that it had been used to,” the family member said. 

“This may have caused some kind of jealousy and led what was normally a docile animal to attack the children.”

Novais and her husband have another dog as well who is not believed to be involved in the twins’ deaths.

One of the babies was killed instantly by the dog, while the other was left with serious injuries and eventually suffered a cardiac arrest.

Novais and her husband had been trying to start a family unsuccessfully for nine years before they welcomed their twins.

Officials in Piripá, a small northern town, have expressed sympathy for the devastated parents.

“In the face of this immeasurable loss, we express our condolences and sympathy with parents Elaine and Regis, and their friends and family in this moment of sadness and pain,” the town said in a statement.