SEOUL - An alleged case of infanticide committed by a South Korean woman in her 30s, who was found to have kept two infant bodies in a freezer at her apartment in Suwon, has been revealed after the government investigated cases of more than 2,000 babies. These were born in hospitals, but their births remain unregistered by their parents for years, according to the state audit agency on Thursday.

The Board of Audit and Inspection said it has been looking into these cases since March and has asked local governments and the police to confirm the whereabouts of infants logged born since 2015 but still unregistered in the state system.

The board has been looking into 1 per cent – or about 20 – unregistered babies. While tracing their whereabouts, the authorities happened to find the woman in Suwon who was keeping the infant bodies in her freezer, according to officials.

The Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency said on Thursday that it found two infants’ frozen bodies in a freezer in her home in the city in Gyeonggi province around 30km south of capital Seoul.

The suspect admitted to killing the infants herself during the raid on Wednesday. The woman, who already has three children – a 12-year-old daughter, a 10-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter – with her husband was found to have committed infanticide when she became pregnant again amid escalating financial difficulties.

The woman gave birth to the babies in maternity hospitals in November 2018 and November 2019 and took them home, where she strangled them to death. She had stored the bodies, which appeared to be of the two one-day-old infants, in the freezer.

The husband told the police that he knew his wife was pregnant, but he didn’t know she had killed the babies. He also said that “I believed that she had abortions”. He is being investigated by police too.

The police said on Thursday that it has asked a court for an arrest warrant for the suspect on charges of infanticide.

While those cases are under investigation, a similar case was found on Thursday in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi province, according to local reports.

A woman in her 20s living there was booked by the police on Thursday on charges of handing over her baby to an unidentified person she had met on the Internet right after giving birth in December 2021. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK