21 infants found dead in Chinese river

March 30, 2010 According to media reports, the bodies of 21 infants were found washed ashore along the riverbanks of the Guangfu river in eastern China over the past weekend. They are believed to have been dumped there by hospitals.

Local residents found the bodies at the outskirsts of Jining, a city in the province of Shandong, underneath a bridge. Video footage showed that the bodies were in yellow bags, at least one of which was marked as "medical waste". Eight of the bodies had identification tags on them, which were traced back to a local hospital, the People's Daily web site reported; the other thirteen were unidentified.

The Xinhua news agency, meanwhile, reported that some of the bodies were fetuses. It was not immediately clear how many of the bodies were male or female.

An official from the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical College, who requested to remain anonymous, commented that "Several of the bodies of babies with [identification] tags were from our hospital, but not all of them. The officials from the health bureau are still in the hospital doing an investigation," as quoted by the Associated Press.