Following the death of both of her parents in quick succession, one 13-year-old girl was sent to sleep on her grandmother’s floor before she was sold into marriage for just £7.

Tamara, was born into a family that lived below the poverty line, like the majority of others in her rural farming community.

When Tamara’s mum and dad both died when she was taken in by her grandmother. But this did not last long, she returned from school one day to receive the horrifying news she had been sold.

A man in his 20s who had never met Tamara paid 15,000 Malawian kwacha for her – around $9, or £7.

Her grandmother had already exchanged the money for maize to feed the family and the man was impatient for Tamara to quit school and move to live with him.

By 12 Tamara was expecting a baby. “She told me I had to get married,” Tamara told the BBC. “She had already received money from a man.”

“Life was difficult because the man was older,” Tamara added. “He used to physically abuse me by biting me every time I did something wrong.”

After three months of abuse the alarm was raised to social services. The man fled, leaving Tamara to walk to her aunt’s village.

Tamara was returned to school but it was at this point she noticed she had missed some periods. Aged just 12 she had to come to terms with giving birth. At 13 Tamara was nine months pregnant and sleeping on the floor of her aunt’s small hut whilst continuing to work the fields.

Ultimately, Tamara gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Prince. A small Malawian NGO based in the city of Blantyre, called People Serving Girls At Risk, paid for a man on a bicycle to pedal her to the local health clinic when she went into labour.

The NGO also performed regular check-ins with her and her aunt. Thankfully, Tamara’s labour was also uncomplicated, which is not the case for many child brides, according to The World Health Organisation.

“Tamara is back home and doing well with her young son, her family are very happy about his arrival,” says Caleb Ng’ombo, executive director at People Serving Girls At Risk.

“She has the support of the community and her aunt, but the real work starts now. It would be better for her to return to school but she also needs to support her child.”

Tamara said she hopes Prince will be able to finish school. The young mum now helps out on her aunt’s vegetable stall which brings in about £39 a month.

It’s a few steps away from their hut. Tamara helps out when she can and manages to maintain a social life with the other girls in the village.

It is estimated one in five girls across the world are married by the age of 18, according to campaign group Girls Not Brides. Even countries which have laws against child marriage sometimes fail to enforce them but in Malawi some are seeing the first signs of change.

Child marriage has been illegal in Malawi since 2017, but it still remains culturally acceptable in rural communities like Tamara’s, where about 85 per cent of Malawi’s population live. More than 40 per cent of girls in the country are married under the age of 18, according to Girls Not Brides.

Austrian adventurer Felix Baumgartner tragically passed away in a paragliding mishap after expressing concerns about ‘too much wind’ mere hours before the incident.

The 56 year old, who shot to international stardom with his stratospheric leap in 2012, met his untimely demise this afternoon when his motorised paraglider is said to have plunged into a swimming pool in Fermo, Italy. A hotel worker on site sustained neck injuries and was rushed to hospital, as per reports.

Earlier today, Baumgartner uploaded a video on Instagram showcasing his flight with a paramotor paraglider, alongside an image of an airstrip captioned: “Too much wind.”

In a selfie shared on social media just days prior to the tragic event, Baumgartner could be seen piloting the craft over the same region in Italy. Reports suggest he experienced a “sudden onset of illness” during Thursday’s flight, which led to him losing control.

Reflecting on the tenth anniversary of his historic jump in an interview with CNN Sports, Felix Baumgartner shared the awe-inspiring moment just before his leap from the pod. He said: “I’m standing there on top of the world outside of a capsule in space and in the stratosphere. I looked around the sky above me was completely black. I was really trying to inhale that moment.”

He further described the experience as quite challenging, saying: “It’s very uncomfortable. You have a total lack of mobility. It always feels like you’re breathing through a pillow. You’re completely separated from the outside world.”

Baumgartner also revealed his coping strategy during the mission: “So once the visor is down, all you can hear is yourself breathing. I had to look at the suit like it is my friend, not my enemy.”

Among his other notable feats, Baumgartner executed a 65-foot base jump off the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and traversed the English Channel using carbon-fibre wings in 2003.

Launching from a plane at 30,000 feet above Dover, Felix soared for 14 minutes over a distance of 22 miles to land in France, equipped with a specially designed jumpsuit featuring a six-foot solid wing, enabling him to glide through the air. He later expressed the sensation of the flight as one of “total freedom”.

From Gare du Nord, Eurostar serves direct destinations in London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Additionally, it connects to other cities in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany via these hubs.

Specific routes include London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Cologne