Russia’s main investigative body, the State Investigative Committee, said in a statement that the chief physician and the acting head of the hospital’s intensive care unit were detained on suspicion of “improper performance of their official and professional duties in organising and providing medical care.”

The newborns were born at Novokuznetsk Maternity Hospital No. 1 between 1 and 12 January, with the first reported death on 4 January, Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko told the BBC. The authority said it had released footage showing one of the doctors being escorted by police and another signing documents.

Authorities have not disclosed a definitive cause of the babies’ deaths. In its statement, the Investigative Committee said the reason remains unclear while post-mortem examinations and evidence gathering continue. The hospital itself has announced it will stop accepting patients temporarily amid a surge in respiratory infections, and nine post-mortems are underway.

The Region of Kemerovo Ministry of Health also issued a statement confirming the tragic scale of the incident, noting that infants who died had experienced severe intra-uterine infections shortly after birth. Regional officials added that the hospital had dealt with a high number of premature and critically ill newborns, though they stopped short of attributing the deaths to specific clinical causes.

The deaths have provoked anger and disbelief across Russia, where infant mortality rates are a sensitive public issue amid long-standing demographic concerns. The case has drawn national attention as investigators continue to piece together what went wrong at one of Novokuznetsk’s principal maternity facilities.