Frightened: Although Hamer women love their children, the thought of curses and being ostracised by their village means they usually do what the elders say

Fortunate: This set of twins from the Hamer tribe were lucky to survive with most children born in multiple births in the Hamer tribe declared mingi and killed

Superstition: Bana and Hamer people are deeply superstitious and worry that they will bring bad luck to the village if they don't dispose of mingi children

'If the first tooth appears in theupper jaw, instead of the lower, the child becomes mingi,' explains photographer Eric Lafforgue who has spent a considerable amount of time with the Karo and Hamer tribes. 'This applies to the babyteeth and the adult teeth, so older children can be killed too.

'Being declared mingi almost always meansdeath of the child,' he continues. 'The tribe will leave thechild alone in the bush without food andwater or will throw the child in the middle ofthe river full of crocodiles.'

Although Ms Balguda wasn't required to kill her own child, she was forced to stand and watch as elders carried her babies away to their deaths. 'It was not me who killed the babies,' she remembers. 'It was other people from my village. I broke the rules of our community, so they killed my babies.'

Cruel though the practice is, village elders fear that if the children aren't killed, bad luck will blight the tribe. 'Most of the tribes in the Omo Valley still have strong superstitions,' adds Lafforgue.

'The Karo, Bana and Hamer tribes believe evil spirits or a "curse" will bring bad luck for the community, like drought, famine, disease or even death if mingi children are not killed.'

Gruesome: Mingi babies are often thrown from the cliffs into the Omo River where they are eaten by crocodiles or left to die from exposure in the bush

Culture: The people of the Hamer tribe (left) and the Bana (right) continue to practice mingi even though it has been outlawed by the Ethiopian government

Powerful: Although Karo elders, among them this man, decided to end the mingi tradition in 2012, elders from the Hamer and Bana tribes continue

But help is at hand for some of the children. In 2012, Karo tribal elders finally agreed to put an end to the mingi tradition - in part as a result of the efforts of Lale Labuko and John Rowe, the founders of Omo Child; a charity that takes in mingi children.

Labuko, himself a member of the Karo tribe, was among the first in his village to go to school and discovered at the age of 15 that he had had two mingi sisters - both of whom were killed before he was born.

The charity, which runs an orphanage in the Omo Valley, spends much of its time trying to persuade Bana and Hamer parents to give their mingi children to foster parents outside the community instead of killing them.

But changing the local attitude to 'cursed' children has proved challenging. 'Some women who know know they are pregnant with a mingi child agree to give the baby to the organisation,' explains Lafforgue.

Lucky escape: Some children are rescued by an organisation called Omo Child which takes infants such as this one to be raised in orphanages

Rescued: Four-year-old Shomo Bulka, seen here in the arms of a nanny, is a mingi child but was saved by his father who handed him to a policeman soon after birth

'But some come under pressure from the elders and change their minds, which means the baby dies. One Hamer woman I met even told me that although she wanted 10 babies, if one turned out to be mingi, she would "throw it away".'

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