A woman from the west African nation of Mali has given birth to nine babies—nonuplets.
According to a statement by the Ministry of Health in the West African country, the woman identified as Halima Cisse was expected to give birth to seven babies, but an ultrasound did not detect two more babies in her womb.
The ministry disclosed Cisse gave birth to five girls and four boys through the caesarean section.
Halima had been under the watchful eyes of doctors in Bamako for two weeks but was transferred to Morocco for specialised care under the orders of interim President Bah Ndaw.
Mali Health Minister Fanta Siby said the proud mother and her children were doing well and would return home in several weeks’ time.
The Malian nonuplets are not the only unusually large birth that has been reported in 2021.
Earlier this year, the BBC reported that a 49-year-old Nigerian woman had given birth to sextuplets—four girls and two boys—on February 9.
Deaconess Doris Levi Wilson, from Bayelsa state in the south of the west African nation, named her children Miracle, Mercy, Merit, Marvis, Marvellous and Mirabel, according to local journalist Kos-Ikah Onisoman.
The sextuplets were born six years after Wilson had delivered twins. She had tried to have children unsuccessfully for more than two decades before this.
