Almost 250 embryos 'discovered in Russian forest'

Almost 250 embryos have been found stashed in four huge vats in woods in Russia's Urals after apparently being illegally dumped by local hospitals that carried out abortions, police said on Tuesday.

Four huge 50-litre vats of formaldehyde with dozens of embryos stashed in were found by local residents while taking a Sunday stroll through woods 75 kilometres (about 45 miles) north of Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Sverdlovsk region.

Arriving Monday morning, police found 248 embryos aged 12-16 weeks with tags containing surnames and numbers, said a statement by the regional police force.

"I think that soon we will find out who has dropped the embryos and all the guilty will be punished", said the deputy head of the Sverdlovsk government Vladimir Vlasov.

A spokesperson of the local police said that the embryos appear to have been illegally dumped after abortions by local hospitals which treated them as "biological waste".

The numbers on the tags -- such as 40, 24, 27 and 14 -- probably refer to the numbers of hospitals the embryos originated from. In Russia, hospitals like schools are usually known by a number rather than a name.

Many details show "the criminal character of what was found", said Elena Mizulina, the president of the family, women and children committee in the State Duma lower house of parliament.

"About 5-6 million illegal abortions are done every year in Russia. According to the size of the foetus, the abortions were done when it is already illegal," she told the Izvestia daily.

"Probably, the medical workers wanted to get rid of the evidence", she said.

Russian law allows abortions up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

The Russian health ministry has organized a special commission to look into the case. The commission needs to determine which companies provide embryo disposal services to local hospitals, the regional authorities said in a statement.

Abortions were authorized in Russia after the revolution of 1917 that led to Communist rule.

According to the official statistics, every year Russian women carry out 1.23 million abortions while the annual number of newly-born children is 1.7 million.

According to sociologists, no less than 2.7 million births are required anually to maintain a stable demographic situation.

Russia is in deep demographic crisis after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 with its population decreased from 148.3 to 142 millions.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.