In the stifling heat of Buenaventura, Feliciana Hurtado walks around with a big smile on her face in the neighbourhood where she has delivered many babies over the last 30 years. The 68-year-old greets the mothers whom she has helped, and their children. Ms Hurtado lives in a relatively safe area of the mainly Afro-Colombian port city on Colombia's impoverished and conflict-ridden western coast, but her work as a midwife often takes her to dangerous and troubled neighbourhoods. Buenaventura has a long history of violent conflict, which led to it being dubbed Colombia's "capital of horror". Since 1988, armed gangs have battled for territorial control of drug routes out of the port and carried out gruesome dismemberments in "casas de pique" (Spanish for chop houses). In 2014, the Colombian military intervened in Buenaventura to regain control from the gangs. The intervention provided short-term stability, but Buenaventura is now suffering a new wave of violence, and midwives like Ms Hurtado put themselves at risk by confronting armed fighters to help women living in violent areas deliver babies. Ms Hurtado recalls armed fighters stopping her while entering dangerous neighbourhoods in the city to work. "Why are you here? Who sent you? Whose house were you in?," they would question her. "I'd tell them I was there to help a pregnant woman and would say which house I needed to go to. Then they would go and verify. Had there been no pregnant woman, I would have been in trouble." Mutual support This traditional type of Afro-Colombian midwifery has been around for centuries on Colombia's Pacific coast. In 2017, the Colombian government declared it as a national heritage practice in an effort to recognise and preserve the women's ancestral knowledge. In Buenaventura alone, there are at least 40 traditional Afro-Colombian midwives. In 1988, the women joined together to form the Association of United Midwives of the Pacific (Asoparupa) under the leadership of Rosmilda Quiñones. The association supports over 250 midwives all over the Colombian Pacific region who attend to between 4,500 and 5,000 births annually. Known as "las parteras" (Spanish for midwives), they use traditional techniques and remedies in their work, such as administering tomaseca, a potent alcoholic analgesic made with medicinal plants to prevent cramping. Many Afro-Colombian women say they prefer the services of the parteras to going to local clinics. Helen González, a 22-year-old who gave birth to a son nine months ago with Ms Hurtado's help, says: "As soon as the contractions start, the parteras provide support. One doesn't feel alone. I wasn't interested in going to a hospital because I would have felt isolated."