The last birth of mountain gorilla twins in Virunga National Park was in September 2020.

Mafuko herself gave birth to twins in 2016, but they both died within a week.

Young gorillas rely entirely on their mothers for care and transport – and are extremely vulnerable in what can be a dangerous environment where poachers and many armed groups operate.

The authorities at the park say additional monitoring and protection measures have been put in place to ensure the twins’ survival during this critical period. Rangers would closely observe the young family and provide support if needed, they said.

A gorilla’s pregnancy lasts for about eight-and-a-half months, and females usually give birth to one infant every four years.

According to Virunga conservationists, Mafuko has had a remarkable history of survival herself.

Born in 2003 into the Kabirizi family, she lost her mother to armed attackers when she was four years old. She joined the Bageni family when she was 10 – and to date has been pregnant and given birth five times.

Conservationists at Virunga, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site, say her latest offspring represent a significant boost for efforts to protect the endangered species.

Thanks to anti-poaching patrols and community programmes – supported by the European Union and Unesco – mountain gorilla numbers in Virunga have slowly increased over the past decade.

This success which is documented by the IUCN and other partners, led to their status being upgraded from “critically endangered” to “endangered” in 2018.

Virunga spans 7,800 sq km (3,000 sq miles) and is home to an astonishingly diverse landscape – from active volcanoes and vast lakes to rainforest and mountains.

Two US officials have confirmed to CBS News, the BBC’s US media partner, that Russia has sent a submarine and other navy vessels to escort the tanker.

The US Coast Guard tried to board it last month in the Caribbean when it was believed to be heading towards Venezuela. The Coast Guard had a warrant to seize the ship over its alleged breaking of sanctions.

The vessel has since dramatically changed course and its approach to Europe has coincided with the arrival of around 10 US military transport aircraft as well as helicopters.

Russia says it is “monitoring with concern” the situation around the ship.

“At present, our vessel is sailing in the international waters of the North Atlantic under the state flag of the Russian Federation and in full compliance with the norms of international maritime law,” its foreign ministry said.

“For reasons unclear to us, the Russian ship is being given increased and clearly disproportionate attention by the US and Nato military, despite its peaceful status,” it said.

Two US officials told CBS News earlier on Tuesday that American forces were planning to board the ship, and that Washington preferred to seize it rather than sink it.

BBC Verify has been looking at footage released by Russia Today, reportedly taken onboard an oil tanker, which shows a ship in the distance matching the profile of a US Coast Guard Legend-class cutter.

It has also been monitoring the latest reported location of the Marinera. According to AIS location data from ship-tracking platform Marine Traffic, its location as of Tuesday morning was in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 300km (186 miles) south of Iceland’s shoreline.

Previous AIS tracking data suggests it travelled north, past the western coast of the UK over the past two days.

The survivor of a gang rape in the northern Indian state of Haryana has been discharged from hospital a week after her horrific assault, a police official told the BBC.

The 26-year-old mother-of-two was taken to hospital in Faridabad city on the morning of 30 December with serious head and facial injuries and several fractures.

Her sister said she was out visiting a friend and was waiting for transport just after midnight when two men in an ambulance offered her a lift. They drove her to a deserted place where they raped her and then threw her out of the speeding vehicle.

A police spokesman said they had acted swiftly and arrested the two men and seized the vehicle.

The woman was discharged by the hospital on Monday night following treatment and surgeries.

Senior police official Mukesh Kumar told the BBC that they have approached the court to allow her to visit the prison for an “identification parade”.

Once the court order comes, she would be asked to pick out the two suspects from a crowd of men.

The police said the crime took place on the intervening night of 29th and 30th December.

“The incident took place between 12.30 and 02:00. One stood outside the van and kept an eye on the surroundings while the other raped the woman inside the van,” Yashpal Yadav, public relations officer of Faridabad police, said.

Police had questioned the suspects, who were later produced in court and sent to prison, he added.

A doctor at the hospital where the survivor was treated had said that the woman was brought in “at around 05:30 on 30 December… she had a lot of injuries”.

Shalini Chopra, a social worker and an opposition politician, who spoke to the survivor after she was discharged from the hospital told the BBC that the woman was “better but still in pain”.

The case has provoked anger and outrage in India and drawn comparisons with the horrific gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi in December 2012.

That crime had made global headlines, led to huge protests in Delhi and several other cities and forced the government to introduce tough new anti-rape laws that included the death penalty for the most gruesome attacks.

Four men convicted of the gang-rape and murder were hanged in 2020. One of the rapists died in prison while a juvenile was freed after spending time in a reform centre.

But despite the heightened scrutiny of sexual crimes since then, tens of thousands of rapes and sexual assaults continue to be reported every year.

According to latest police records, 29,670 rapes and 2,796 attempted rapes were reported in 2023. In addition, police also recorded 849 cases of child rapes and 94 cases of attempted rapes of children.

[BBC]