A newborn baby girl brought into hospital on the back of a motorcycle died just two hours after being born.
The infant had suffered complications during birth - she had likely inhaled amniotic fluid during a difficult birth and needed urgent medical care.
But with no NICU facilities in the clinic where she was born outside Bangui, in Central African Republic and no ambulance available to ferry her else where, she had to undergo a two hour drive on the back of the bike.
Crippling and abrupt aid cuts were part of the reason why staff at the country’s only children’s hospital tried their best, but it was too late to save her. Her grandmother, sobbing, carried the bundle away.
Hard-won success in efforts to stop women and babies dying in childbirth have faced a serious setback with recent cuts to foreign aid - with the trend now reversing in some countries, new figures show.
Maternal mortality is particularly acute in parts of Africa, and is already playing out in the Central African Republic, which has the second highest rate of neonatal deaths globally, according to the UN.
