Eastern Cape police are investigating how the bodies of four newly born babies ended up in a Mthatha dumping site.

Police suspect hospitals around Mthatha may have dumped the bodies.

"The infants had toe tags. Two of them are still identifiable, but the other two are in an advanced stage of decomposition," said police spokesman Inspector Dineo Koena.

Koena said the gruesome discovery was made by a scavenger who was looking for food at the dumping site in Mthatha's Ikhwezi township yesterday.

- Vuyolwethu Sangotsha