After receiving care for over a year, the Guinness World Record-breaking nonuplets are finally home in Mali.
Halima Cissé and husband Abdelkader Arby welcomed their nine babies in Morocco last May. Afterwards, the children — who arrived at 30 weeks — spent months in the hospital before moving to an apartment, where they continued to receive care, according to the BBC.
But on Tuesday, the children arrived safely in Mali, per the outlet.
“It’s a lot of work but Allah, who gave us this blessing, will help us in their upbringing and taking care of them,” Arby said after their arrival, per the outlet.
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Abdeljalil Bounhar/AP A paediatrician examines one of the nine babies two weeks after their arrival in 2021
Cissé, now 27, was taken to a clinic in Morocco shortly before her babies’ birth, Dr. Fanta Siby, Mali’s minister of health and social development, announced in a statement last year. At the time, doctors believed she was only expecting seven children.
Abdeljalil Bounhar/AP/Shutterstock Nurses takes care of one of the nine babies protected in an incubator
“So you can imagine our surprise when we discovered nine of them during the birth,” Casablanca Ain Borja Clinic’s Dr. Youssef Alaoui said during an interview with Today last year. “Luckily this didn’t faze us.”
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The babies were born weighing between about 1-2 lbs., the BBC reported at the time, with Alaoui saying they would remain in incubators for several months.
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Back in May, as the nonuplets celebrated their first birthday, Guinness World Records announced that they had claimed the title of most children delivered at a single birth to survive.
“Nonuplets are extremely rare, and until the arrival of the Cissé children, no cases had been recorded of nine babies from a single birth surviving for more than a few hours,” the record-keeping organization wrote.
At the time, the children were still under the care of the clinic in Morocco where they were born.
Abdeljalil Bounhar/AP A nurse takes care of one of the nine babies shortly after their 2021 birth
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As the family celebrated the milestone moment in May, Arby reflected on being a dad to nine newborns.
“They’re all crawling now. Some are sitting up and can even walk if they hold on to something,” he told the BBC at the time, admitting that it can feel “tiring at times.”
“It’s not easy but it’s great,” he added, noting how grateful the couple feels that their babies are “in perfect health.”
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