A 25-year-old woman has given birth to nine babies - two more than doctors had detected during scans.
Malian woman Halima Cisse gave birth to the nonuplets in Morocco. She was flown there by Mali's government for specialist care.
The babies weighed between five hundred grams and one kilogram and will be kept in incubators.
Two sets of nonuplets have previously been recorded - one born to a woman in Australia in 1971 and another to a woman in Malaysia in 1999 - but none of the babies survived more than a few days.
Freelance journalist Paul Lorgerie is in Mali's capital Bamako and says there is a long road ahead for these babies if they survive.
He said Timbuktu is a dangerous place to raise a family.
