Nineteen pregnant mothers and four children have been saved from a suspected baby factory in Nigeria.

Investigators claim the boys were going to be sold for £1,000 and the girls for £700 on the black market.

They say the women were lured into the factories in Lagos with the promise of domestic work before being made to work as prostitutes and forcibly impregnated.

One woman was told she would be ‘paid handsomely’ and released if she carried the baby to term.

Police raided four properties in the city on Monday and arrested untrained nurses Happiness Ukwuoma, 40 and Sherifat Ipeya, 54.

But they are still looking for the main suspect, named as mum-of-five Madam Oluchi, reports The Guardian Nigeria.

The women were aged between 15 and 28 and the youngest of the babies found by police was just a day old, according to local reports.

A few of them voluntarily signed up to work at the factory believing they would be paid, but told officers they haven’t seen a penny.

Detectives caught wind of the factory on September 19 after neighbours tipped them off about a large number of pregnant women in their street.

One of the rescued women said she borrowed money to travel from her village to Lagos after being promised housekeeping work.

After arriving at the bus stop she had her phone confiscated and was taken to the ‘factory’ where she was trapped for a year, Vanguard newspaper reports.

She says she was initially made to work as a prostitute every night before falling pregnant and being moved to a different building.

Her captors offered to pay her well and give her freedom back if she gave them her baby.

Authorities say victims are now undergoing rehabilitation work and the investigation is ongoing.

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