Among the ruins of a building in Jindires, a town in the northwest of Syria Very shocked by the earthquake, rescuers found a baby, born under the rubble and still attached to her deceased mother by the umbilical cord.
This girl is the only survivor of a family in which all the members died when their four-story building collapsed. The emergency teams found the bodies of his father -Abdalá Mleihan-, his mother -Aafra-, his three sisters, his brother and his aunt.
Watch: LIVE | More than 23,000 dead in Turkey and Syria after powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.8
“We were looking for Abu Rudayna (nickname for Abdalá) and his family. First we found his sister, then his wife, then Abu Rudayna, they were together against each other”, a relative of the family, Khalil Sawadi, explained to 'AFP', still in shock.
The newborn still had the umbilical cord attached to her mother: "We cut it and my cousin took the baby to the hospital."
In a video circulating on social networks, a man is seen she carries a naked baby among the rubble, covered in dust, with the umbilical cord still dangling. In the icy cold, another throws a blanket over the creature.
The baby was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Afrin, where she was placed in an incubator and given vitamins. “He arrived with his limbs numb from the cold, his blood pressure had dropped. We did first aid on her and put her under infusion because she had gone too long without being fed.”, Dr. Hani Maaruf told 'AFP'.
The little girl has bruises, but her condition is stable, and she weighs 3,175 kilograms, so she was born on schedule and is still under observation at the medical center, according to the doctor: "She was probably born seven hours after the earthquake."
In the last few hours it was revealed that Thousands of people are sending requests through social networks to adopt the little girl, who was named Aya, which means miracle in Arabic. According to the news channel 'Telemundo', they ask for details and a contact to be able to do so.
With their few means, it took the rescuers hours to remove the rubble to extract the bodies of the rest of the family. They were placed side by side in a relative's house, covered with sheets, awaiting the funeral. In the room, Khalil Sawadi listed their names: “We are displaced from Deir Ezzor, Abdullah is my cousin and I am married to his sister”.
The family had fled the volatile Deir Ezzor region further east, believing they would be safe in Jindires, a town controlled since 2018 by Turkish forces and pro-Turkish rebel groups.
