Special Correspondent Alex Crawford, reporting from Lilongwe, Malawi

Backstreet abortions in Malawi are expected to increase dramatically if the US withdraws its funding to all foreign groups which give advice on terminations.

The poor African country already has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world and thousands of women die every year from illegal abortions.

Its already fragile health service infrastructure is reliant on overseas funding and any drop in financial help is expected to have a big impact.

The main hospital in capital city Lilongwe is already crowded with women seeking post-abortive care.


US aid cut risks more backstreet abortions

A third of the beds in the maternity ward are filled with women requiring surgery and treatment after having illegal abortions.

"People who don't know where to go just hear about it from friends," said department head Dr Grace Chiudzu.

"They use things to drink like Surf (washing powder) or quinine and things to poke themselves like a clothes hanger - even a knife - to try to poke that pregnancy.

"They come here very sick. About half lose their lives."

Those who do make it to hospital risk being sent to jail for seven years under the country's strict anti-abortion laws.

Activists and human rights lawyers argue the withdrawal of funds for groups helping prevent unwanted pregnancies or supporting those who have become pregnant will impact some of the most vulnerable women in the world.

We saw one abortionist mix his potion from a wild plant. He told us how a few sips would deal with the unwanted unborn baby within two days.

But he said it would cause women who take it great pain and that they would bleed very heavily.

"If it gets too bad, I tell her to go to the hospital but I tell her not to say she came to me," he said.

Under Malawi law, abortionists face 14 years in jail.

But his motives are simple.

"When I assist women in terminating their pregnancies, I am able to buy some food and even some tablets of soap," he told us.

Mary - not her real name - told us she went to a faith healer after becoming pregnant when her third child was just six months old.

Image: An abortionist mixes his potion of water and sap from a wild plant

She said: "My husband told me to go to the herbalist and terminate the baby because we could not afford another child at that time."

Mary began bleeding very badly.

"I lost a lot of blood and could hardly walk so I decided to go to the hospital because I could not stop the bleeding and neither could the herbalist," she said.

By the time she arrived, she was in a critical condition. The doctors managed to save her life but they had to take out her uterus - a huge taboo in the African culture.

Her husband left her and she was thrown out of her community with her three little children.

"I was completely devastated and heartbroken," she said. "I was even imagining how my children would suffer if I had died due to the backstreet abortion."

There are many more in Lilongwe's main hospital with the same terrible secret. We talked to a group of them, all terrified of being arrested.

Ruth - also not her real name - is a student abandoned by the father.

"It was a mistake," she said. "My plan was to go to school."

She saw the surgery she was getting as the chance of a new beginning.

"I'm happy," she said.

However, Donald Trump's decision to cut funding to groups involved in any abortion-related work will heavily impact other women.

The young doctor who operated on Ruth, Lucky Makonokaya, said: "We sometimes end up taking out the whole uterus… because of the methods they use.

"I think it's very unfair they don't have the choice."

Mr Trump's plans to cut foreign aid are expected to result in more women dying, not just in Malawi but throughout the developing world.

Human rights lawyer Crispine Gwalawala told me: "We're deliberately creating an environment of sending so many women to the grave where we have a solution of making sure we provide a safe abortion."

Watch Alex Crawford's full report on backstreet abortions in Malawi: