The World-record holder nonuplets celebrate first birthday

As his nine miracle babies celebrate their first birthday, the father of a world-record brood of nonuplets has spoken about his experience raising them.

Last year, Kader Arby, 36, and his Mali-born wife Halima Cisse, 27, set a new world record when Halima went to Casablanca, Morocco, to give birth to nine children at the Ain Borja hospital.

She surpassed the previous record holder, ‘Octomum’ Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to two eight babies in 2009.

The nonuplets were just taken off a ventilator in August, five months after their birth, and now live in a flat near the hospital in Casablanca with their mother and a team of round-the-clock caregivers.

‘The nurses help with the nappies — that is not really my area,’ Arby told The Times.

‘They have been bottle-fed since the beginning following the recommendation of the doctor. What kind of person could breastfeed nine babies at the same time?’

Big sister Souda, three, a complement of industrious nurses, and plenty of cake and candles to be blown out joined the brood of five girls and four boys during their first birthday party.