Syrian rescuers have rescued a newborn baby still connected by umbilical cord to her mother, who has since died about 24 hours after the earthquake that devastated northern Syria and southern Turkey.
According to rescue teams, the baby was already born under the rubble after the quake destroyed a four-storey building in Jandairis, a Syrian town hit hard by the quake.
The baby was the only survivor of a family whose members died after the building collapse: the father, Abdallah Mleihan, the mother, Aafra, three sisters, a brother and an aunt.
“We were looking for Abu Roudayna (Abdallah’s nickname) and family. First we found the sister, then the wife, then Abu Roudayna, who were close to each other,” Khalil Sawadi, a relative, told France-Presse news agency. (AFP).
“Then we heard a noise while we were digging […]. We cleaned up and found the little one, thank God,” he added, emphasizing that the baby’s umbilical cord was still connected to her mother.
“We cut [o cordão umbilical] and my cousin took the baby to the hospital,” Sawadi added.
A video circulating on social networks shows a man holding a naked baby, covered in cloth, with the umbilical cord still hanging, in the middle of the rubble, according to international agencies.
Another man throws a blanket over the newborn.
The baby was taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Afrin, where she was placed in an incubator and given vitamins.
“[A bebé] it has arrived [ao hospital] with limbs numb with cold. Blood pressure had dropped. We performed first aid and put her on a drip because she hadn’t breastfed for a long time,” Syrian doctor Hani Maarouf told AFP, adding that the baby suffered some bruising but her health was stable.
“She was probably born seven hours after the earthquake,” he added, indicating that the baby weighs 3.175 kilograms, so, the doctor said, she was born at the right time.
Rescue workers spent hours removing the bodies of the rest of the family one by one using uncertain means.
The bodies of the baby’s family were then placed in another family member’s house, covered with different colored sheets to identify them. There were already several funerals this morning.
In a dimly lit room, Khalil Sawadi lists the names of relatives who came to Jandairis from Deir Ezzor, the largest city in eastern Syria and the country’s seventh largest city, 450 kilometers northeast of the capital Damascus, to die in the war to escape .
“Abdallah is my cousin and I am married to his sister,” he said, recalling that the family fled Deir Ezzor believing they would be safer in Jandairis, a location controlled since 2018 by Turkish forces and pro-Turkish rebel groups.
About 50 houses have collapsed in this town in northwestern Syria, relatively close to the epicenter of the strong earthquake recorded on Monday.
Preliminary estimates of the earthquake already number more than 5,000 dead, with rescue operations still underway among the rubble of destroyed buildings in both countries.
Rescue teams remain in the affected places and the work is complicated by the low temperatures in the region.
According to an estimate released today by the World Health Organization, the number of people affected by the earthquakes in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria could be as high as 23 million.
The European Union has already mobilized 25 search and rescue teams, involving nearly 1,200 rescue workers from 21 countries, including Portugal, to assist Turkish authorities in rescue operations.
Source: DN
