Woman Arrested As Nine Babies Are Found Dead in Garden

German police have unearthed the remains of nine newborn babies buried in flowerpots and buckets, and have arrested a woman on suspicion of manslaughter.

The woman is believed to be the mother of the babies, said German authorities from Brieskow-Finkenheerd, a village near the Polish border. She has not been identified.

The bodies were discovered on Sunday after someone clearing a garage at the site found human bones stored in a fish tank. Police then recovered nine bodies buried in the garden.

Nearly 40 police officers using sniffer dogs are still searching the site today for further remains.

Investigators believe the children were all born - and died - between 1988 and 2004.

Their discovery has led to public outcry in Germany about the fact that they were not recovered earlier. Local politicians have asked why the babies' disappearance was not noticed in the past 16 years.

"We are looking at a crime on a scale that, as far as I can remember, has never been seen in the history of the federal republic," Joerg Schönbohm, the interior minister of the state of Brandenburg, said in a statement.

"We have to ask ourselves how this incredible crime remained hidden over all these years. It's a question directed at relatives, neighbours, doctors and the authorities," he said.

The arrested woman had stored personal belongings at the site in the town of Brieskow-Finkenheerd. She says she is the mother of the children, but has not admitted killing them.

A court spokesman in Franfurt an der Oder said her statement was confused. She is also believed to be the mother of several other children.

The grim discovery follows a series of similar finds in other parts of Germany recently.

Last week, a dead baby girl was found in a public toilet in Magdeburg, and an infant boy on a recycling company's conveyer belt in Guetersloh. In June, a walker in Lower Saxony found a baby in a plastic bag.

In Austria, authorities are holding the parents of at least three of four infants whose bodies were found in a freezer and concrete-filled buckets.