AKARTA (AFP) – Doctors at an Indonesian hospital on Sumatra island Tuesday removed from a one-year-old girl her two deceased triplets, a hospital official said.

Two bodies were successfully removed from inside the abdomen of the girl in surgery, said Irayanti, head of medical services at the main state hospital in the West Sumatra city of Padang.

“They are believed to have been two triplets that did not develop,” she told AFP, adding that the girl had initially been diagnosed as having abdominal tumours.

The five-hour surgery was complicated as the main aortas of the two deceased triplets had been linked to the surviving girl, who was now in a stable condition, Irayanti said.

One of the bodies was complete except for limbs but the second had only a head with hairs and part of its digestive system. The pair would have been lifeless when the girl was born, she added.