The Eastern Cape health portfolio committee says it has found a direct link between the deaths of more than a 100 babies and water contamination in the province.

The Eastern Cape health portfolio committee says it has found a direct link between the deaths of more than a 100 babies and water contamination in the province.

In its report tabled in the legislature this week, the committee attributed the deaths of 131 babies to poor water quality.

The report vindicates a series of reports in the Daily Dispatch, which said the babies had died of diarrhoea and related illnesses because of the water supply in Barkly East and Sterkspruit.

But government departments denied water quality was the cause of the deaths.

The report said: "There is an inexorable causal link between elements of water supply contamination, poor sanitation, hygiene levels, and diarrhoeal infections that resulted in the deaths of 131 babies between January 2008 and April 2008." - Daily Dispatch