CHILD SHEPHERDS OF THE SIMIEN MOUNTAINS

CARRYING a fully grown goat on his back, this five-year-old boy is a child shepherd in the mountains of northern Ethiopia. Away from modern civilization, children living in the Simien Mountains spend their gruelling days herding, or carrying, animals and walking miles through the rocky terrain. From the age of five these children are responsible for goats and sheep in the highlands and when they do rest, the boys and girls are schooled in classrooms made from mud, rocks and wood. German photographer Mario Gerth trekked 3,000 metres up the Ethiopian mountain range to visit this group of Tigray people and their hardy children and witness their unorthodox lifestyle.

Other great stories
WHITE TAILED EAGLES FIGHT FOR FOOD

The claws come out at meal time as a group of white tailed eagles brawl over road-kill .

OTTER FAMILY FIGHT

Splashing around in the water, a mother otter and her son are tangled in a family feud .

OH DEER: MOMENT DEER CRASHES THROUGH WINDSCREEN OF BUS

With no luck at the front of the bus, the deer runs around the center seats trying to escape through the window – THIS is the astonishing moment a DEER crashed through the front windshield of a bus before it went hysterically running around the vehicle .

SEAL GETS READY FOR HIS CLOSE UP

WIDE EYED and staring straight down the lens of the camera, this intrigued seal is ready for his close up .

PORCUPINES COME CLOSE TO VICTORY AGAINST PRIDE OF HUNGRY LIONS

Jostling their quills into the noses of some unlucky cubs, this is the moment two feisty porcupines ALMOST defeat a pride of seven lions .

KINGFISHERS DIVE FOR THEIR DINNER

THESE kingfishers prove no rod is needed as they go fishing for their dinner .

PHOTOGRAPHER BLENDS NIGHT AND DAY IN CITYSCAPES

ALL IS not as it seems in these deceptive cityscapes .

BABY WHALE AND MOTHER LAP UP TOURIST ATTENTION

A grey whale and her calf greet an audience of awestruck admirers on the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico .

RECORD BREAKING WATERMELON

AN American accountant has grown the world's biggest MELON and smashed his way into the record books with his mammoth 350 .

VETERAN BEATEN IN REMEMBRANCE WEEKEND ATTACK

A PENSIONER was left with a fractured jaw after being beaten and robbed outside his home in Birmingham last weekend .

NEW DELHI CHILD RAPE PROTESTS

NEW DELHI, A woman activist of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party crosses a police barricade near the residence of ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi during a protest against the recent rape of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi, India, April 21, 2013 .

ADORABLE CHIMP SHOWS OFF GYMNASTIC SKILLS

WITHOUT a care in the world, this little chimpanzee shows off her gymnastic skills as she swings around her enclosure .