Giving birth while fleeing jihadists: displaced Mozambicans tell their stories

Thousands of Mozambican refugees are returning home from neighbouring Malawi after an easing of tensions between Mozambique's ruling Frelimo party and the opposition, Renamo.

Mumbai man sues parents for giving birth to him without his consent.

The 37-year-old tennis player wanted to keep her 2-year-old daughter, Olympia, inside her belly. She had researched so much about the birthing process and it scared her.

27-year-old Berekhti Burro is one of 700 pregnant women among the new arrivals of refugees seeking shelter in the rapidly growing tent-town of Um Raquba refugee camp in Sudan. Burro, nine-months pregnant, was forced to flee intense fighting near her home in Humera in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, trekking for hours in the blazing sun to safety.

The sound of pre-dawn gunfire woke up heavily pregnant Aziza Falume in Islamist violence-torn northern Mozambique. With no choice but to escape, she gave birth while on the run.

In France, women who wish to give birth in a non-medicalised setting have limited options. There are only six birth centres and 80 midwives who practise homebirths in mainland France. But since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, these alternative methods of giving birth have been gaining traction. Not only are some couples concerned about exposing themselves and their newborn babies to the virus at a hospital, but maternity wards have had to put in place restrictions which mean fathers cannot stay for more than a few hours after the birth.

Mozambican Almeida Jorge sells up to six peanut and coconut grinding machines a day. He invented the equipment but confesses that he was inspired by a similar machine made in China. Today, his invention is a success on the outskirts of Maputo.