OMG Only in Africa

Hundreds of people have attended a wedding in central Somalia between a man who says he is 112 years old, and his teenage wife.

Ahmed Muhamed Dore - who already has 18 children by five wives - said he would like to have more with his new wife, Safia Abdulleh, who is 17 years old.

"Today God helped me realise my dream," Mr Dore said, after the wedding in the region of Galguduud.

The bride's family said she was "happy with her new husband".

Mr Dore said he and his bride - who is young enough to be his great-great-grand-daughter - were from the same village in Somalia and that he had waited for her to grow up to propose.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry," the groom said.

Report from Mogadishu, the Somali capital, says the marriage in the town of Guriceel is being described by Somalian historians as the first of its kind in the Horn of Africa nation for over a century.

Child marriage is most common in very poor households where it is often seen as the only means of providing a secure and safe future for daughters. However, young brides' futures are often bleak. Girls married at a young age lack the skills, confidence, and knowledge necessary to negotiate with their husbands and in-laws about their own bodies. This leaves hundreds of millions of young brides at higher risk for marital rape, gender-based violence, sexually transmitted diseases, and lethal reproductive health complications from giving
birth at an early age.