Malian nonuplets celebrate one year in good health awaiting return home
Audio 00:56
Abdelkader Arby had to wait for authorizations from Morocco during this period of the Covid pandemic to join his wife and newborns at the Aïn Borja private clinic in Casablanca.
© RFI/Amelie Tulet
Text by: Amélie Tulet Follow
2 mins
While their birth was a world first, to the point that some believed it was a hoax, the nonuplets from Mali are celebrating their first birthday on Wednesday May 4.
The "
national babies
" of Mali - 5 girls and 4 boys - were born from the same pregnancy, by cesarean section, on May 4, 2021 in Casablanca, Morocco, in a private clinic.
An extraordinary pregnancy, at very high risk for the health of Halima Cissé, from Timbuktu, as for that of children born at 6 months of pregnancy.
A year later, everyone is doing well.
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After having spent for some
more than three months in an incubator
with moments of great concern for their survival, the nonuplets, a year later, have grown well.
They are now discovering the joys of exploring on all fours, and some are even jumping in and trying their first steps.
Nine healthy one-year-olds inevitably make exhausted parents:
"
It's the most difficult time when they need a lot of attention
," explains Father Abdelkader Arby.
When they start moving, you always have to be there.
When they start wanting to go from left to right.
»
For the first time, the whole family is complete, because the couple before this exceptional birth already had a little girl, Souda, who remained in Timbuktu while her mother Halima Cissé was transferred first to Bamako, then to Casablanca.
Three-year-old Souda traveled on Tuesday May 3 from Mali with her father Abdelkader Arby, and met
her nine siblings
in Casablanca for the first time .
“
It was a moment of joy and at the same time, of stress for her
, says the father, laughing.
She wanted to smile but was also stressed to see them together.
Mashallah, it was very very beautiful.
»
A big whole family to blow out a candle nine times today
in the convalescent residence of the private clinic Aïn Borja
.
The father of the nonuplets, a career soldier, plans to stay several weeks in Casablanca before returning to work in Mali.
Then, after a year in Morocco, the family of nonuplets plans
to return to Mali
, with no date set for the moment.
“
Babies who didn’t cause a lot of problems
”
The Malian government continues to support the family from a distance.
While in Casablanca, the mother of the nonuplets, Halima Cissé, is supported on a daily basis by the team of the private clinic Aïn Borja to take care of these five girls and four boys who have been the subject of all the attention of the pediatrician Dr Khalid Mseif in the early days of their lives.
Until now, the parents are always helped.
There are nurses who come to help them, because it is not easy to take care of nine babies at the same time.
It's very hard.
It's a lot of work.
You have to feed them, cuddle them.
When they are sick, you have to follow them.
Nine, it's really not easy.
But it's fine, as long as there is help, it's fine.
They are children growing normally.
During this year, they have the classic health problems of infants, bronchiolitis, bronchitis.
After that, a priori, it goes rather well.
During this year, these are babies who have not posed many problems, hamdulillah.
And we are really very happy, a year later, to see them all there, in good health.
Pediatrician Khalid Mseif reflects on the current state of health of Malian nonuplets
Amelie Tulet
This happy outcome was made possible thanks to the mobilization of several doctors from Mali and Morocco, as well as the intervention of the Malian authorities at the time and the Moroccan King Mohammed VI who allowed the mother to be transferred in Morocco in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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