She is already an orphan. Among the rubble of a house in Jandairis, a town in Syria hard hit by Monday’s earthquake, rescuers discovered a live baby, still connected by umbilical cord to her deceased mother. The little girl is the only survivor of a family whose other members died in the collapse of their four-story building.
In this town on the border with Turkey, rescuers removed the bodies of his father, Abdallah Mleihan, his mother, Aafra, his three sisters, his brother and his aunt.
“We were looking for Abu Roudayna (Abdallah’s nickname) and his family. First we found his sister, then his wife, then Abu Roudayna, who were grouped together,” a relative of the family, still in a state, told AFP on Tuesday. of shock, Khalil Sawadi.
“Then we heard a noise while we were digging (…) we cleared the brush and found this little boy, thank God,” he adds.
The baby still had the umbilical cord attached to its mother. “We cut it off and my cousin took the baby to the hospital,” Khalil Sawadi continues.
The child taken to the hospital
The baby was taken to the hospital in the nearby city of Afrin. Rescuers spent hours before they were able to remove the bodies of the rest of the family, one after another, with weak means.
They were lined up in a relative’s house, covered with sheets of different colors to identify them, awaiting burial. In the dimly lit room, Khalil Sawadi lists their names. “We are displaced from Deir Ezzor, Abdallah is my cousin and I am married to his sister,” he said.
The family had fled the volatile Deir Ezzor region further east, believing they were safer in Jandairis, a town controlled since 2018 by Turkish forces and pro-Turkish rebel groups.
More than 5,000 dead in Turkey and Syria
About fifty houses collapsed in this town in northwestern Syria, relatively close to the epicenter of the earthquake in Turkey, whose streets are strewn with rubble, according to an AFP correspondent.
The earthquake killed more than 5,000 people in Turkey and Syria. For the only areas outside the control of the Syrian regime, and where aid is scarce, there are currently about 800 dead.
According to the White Helmets, first responders who work in these regions, more than 200 buildings have completely collapsed in this area. This group called on Tuesday international humanitarian organizations to come to the aid of these affected and forgotten regions. “Time is running out. Hundreds of people are still trapped under the rubble,” he said.
Source: BFM TV
