In the rubble of a house in Jandairis, a town in Syria hard hit by Monday’s earthquake, rescuers discovered a living baby, still connected by the umbilical cord to his deceased mother. The little girl is the only survivor of a family whose all the other members died in the collapse of their four-storey building.
In this locality bordering Turkey, the rescuers removed the bodies of his father, Abdallah Mleihan, his mother, Aafra, his three sisters, his brother and his aunt.
“We were looking for Abou Roudayna (Abdallah’s nickname) and his family, we found first his sister, then his wife, then Abou Roudayna, who were grouped close to each other”told AFP this Tuesday, February 7, a relative of the family still in a state of shock, Khalil Sawadi. “Then we heard a noise while we were digging (…) we cleared and found this little one, thank God”he adds.
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The baby had the umbilical cord still connected to its mother. “We cut it and my cousin took the baby to the hospital”, continues Khalil Sawadi. In a video circulating on social networks, we see a man brandishing in the middle of the rubble a naked baby, covered in dust, the umbilical cord still hanging.
Hours to find his family
As the temperature nears zero degrees Celsius, another throws him a blanket to cover the newborn. The baby was taken to hospital in the nearby town of Afrin.
The rescuers spent hours before being able to extricate the bodies of the rest of the family, one after the other, with weak means. They lined them up in a relative’s house, covered with different colored sheets to identify them, awaiting the funeral. 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.
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The family had fled the volatile region of Deir Ezzor, further east, believing they were safer in Jandairis, a locality controlled since 2018 by Turkish forces and pro-Turkish rebel groups.
More than 200 collapsed buildings
About fifty houses collapsed in this locality in northwestern Syria, relatively close to the epicenter of the earthquake in Turkey, whose streets are littered with debris, according to an AFP correspondent.
The earthquake claimed more than 5,000 lives in Turkey and Syria. For the only areas beyond the control of the Syrian regime, and where aid is sorely lacking, there are currently some 800 dead. According to the White Helmets, rescue workers who work in these regions, more than 200 buildings have completely collapsed in this area.
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This group on Tuesday begged international humanitarian organizations to come to the aid of these disaster-stricken and forgotten regions. ” Hurry up. Hundreds of people are still trapped under the rubble”she said.
