S Africa abortion suspects held

Police in South Africa are questioning nine people arrested over the weekend in Johannesburg, accused of running an illegal abortion centre.

Police raided the makeshift medical facility on Saturday, and found blood-stained surgical gloves, medical equipment and blood on the floor.

A total of 11 people - mostly from Uganda - were taken into custody.

Two of those held have since been deported after it was found that they were in the country illegally.

Abortion on demand was made legal in South Africa in 1997.

No qualifications

City official Nthatisi Modingoane told the Sapa news agency that police raided the premises as part of a campaign to crack down on illegal leafleting.

He said the health department had confirmed that the people working in the clinic were not qualified.

"They didn't have qualifications to the level of a nurse, let alone being a doctor and performing a delicate procedure such as abortion," he said.

He said conditions in the makeshift surgery were extremely unhygienic.

"Everything that had been used was still on the floor," he said.

BBC correspondent Mpho Lakaje visited the office block where the abortion clinic operated.

He said it also housed driving schools, security services and a student college, and that police were trying to track down the building's owner.

Police are also trying to find out what happened to the aborted foetuses.