March 24 2003

Police in south-western China discovered 28 baby girls hidden in nylon suitcases on a long-distance bus, apparently destined to be sold, police and a state-run newspaper said.

One of the babies had died by the time police, acting on a tip-off, found them last week when the bus was stopped at a motorway toll gate in Bingyang, Guangxi province, the Beijing News said.

Police at the Bingyang police station said more than 20 suspects, some among the bus passengers, had been arrested. The babies ranged in age from a few days to about three months.

“They had been on the bus for four or five hours before they were found,” an officer said.

Some of the infants were two or three to a suitcase, which were stacked on the luggage rack, the back row of seats and along the sides of the bus.

The babies seemed to have been drugged to keep them from crying. Some were starting to turn purple as temperatures had dropped on the bus during the night.

Police said they did not know where the babies came from or where they were headed. The bus was travelling from Yulin city in poverty-stricken Guangxi province to central China’s similarly poor Anhui province.

The 27 surviving babies, who were in stable condition, were being cared for at the Minorities Weisheng School in nearby Nanlin district, police said.

Most of those arrested were middle-aged women from Bingyang.

“They probably wanted to make some money. They might have been headed for Guangdong,” a police spokesman said. He said they were still seeking other suspects. “They haven’t arrested all of them yet,” he said.

So far no one had claimed the infants. “It’s possible the parents gave the babies away. Family planning policy is very strict and they probably had exceeded their birth limit and wanted to give the babies away to avoid fines,” the officer said.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/23/1048354475064.html