Newborn found in debris, just feet from dead family

Syrian girl rescued with umbilical cord attached recovering

JINDERIS, Syria — Residents digging through a collapsed building in a northwest Syrian town discovered a crying infant whose mother appears to have given birth to her while buried underneath the rubble from this week’s devastating earthquake, relatives and a doctor said Tuesday.

The newborn girl’s umbilical cord was still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead, they said. The baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse Monday in the small town of Jinderis, near the Turkish border, said Ramadan Sleiman, a relative.

Monday’s pre-dawn 7.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by multiple aftershocks, caused widespread destruction across southern Turkey and northern Syria. Thousands have been killed, with the toll mounting as more bodies are discovered. But dramatic rescues have also occurred. Elsewhere in Jinderis, a young girl was found alive, buried in concrete under the wreckage of her home.

The newborn was rescued Monday afternoon, more than 10 hours after the quake struck. After rescuers dug her out, a female neighbor cut the cord, and she and others rushed with the baby to a children’s hospital in the nearby town of Afrin, where she has been kept on an incubator, said Dr. Hani Maarouf, who is treating the baby.

Video of the rescue circulating on social media shows the moments after the baby was removed from the rubble, as a man lifts her up, her umbilical cord still dangling, and rushes away as another man throws him a blanket to wrap her in.

The baby’s body temperature had fallen to 95 degrees and she had bruises, including a large one on her back, but she is in stable condition, he said.

Abu Hadiya must have been conscious during the birth and must have died soon after, Maarouf said. He estimated the baby was born several hours before being found, given the amount her temperature had dropped. If the girl had been born just before the quake, she wouldn’t have survived so many hours in the cold, he said.

When the earthquake hit, Abu Hadiya, her husband and four children apparently tried to rush out of their apartment building, but the structure collapsed on them. Their bodies were found near the building’s entrance, Sleiman said.

“She was found in front of her mother’s legs,” he said. “After the dust and rocks were removed the girl was found alive.”

Maarouf said the baby weighed 7 pounds, an average weight for a newborn, and so was carried nearly to term.

“Our only concern is the bruise on her back, and we have to see whether there is any problem with her spinal cord,” he said, saying she has been moving her legs and arms normally.

Jinderis, located in the rebel-held enclave of northwest Syria, was hit hard in the quake, with dozens of buildings that collapsed.

Abu Hadiya and her family were among millions of Syrians who fled to the rebel-held territory from other parts of the country. They were originally from the village of Khsham in eastern Deir el-Zour province, but left in 2014 after the Islamic State group captured their village, said a relative who identified himself as Saleh al-Badran.

In 2018, the family moved to Jinderis after the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army — an umbrella for several insurgent groups — captured the town from U.S.backed Kurdish led fighters, Sleiman said.

On Tuesday, Abu Hadiya and the girl’s father, Abdullah Turki Mleihan, along with their four other children were laid to rest in a cemetery on the outskirts of Jinderis.

The town saw another dramatic rescue Monday evening, when a toddler was pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building. Video from the White Helmets, the emergency service in the region, shows a rescuer digging through crushed concrete amid twisted metal until the little girl, named Nour, appeared.

The girl, still half buried, looks up dazedly as they tell her, “Dad is here, don’t be scared. … Talk to your dad, talk.”

A rescuer cradled her head in his hands and tenderly wiped dust from around her eyes before she was pulled out.

The quake has wreaked new devastation in the opposition-held zone, centered on the Syrian province of Idlib, which was already been battered by years of war and strained by the influx of displaced people from the country’s civil war, which began in 2011.

GHAITH ALSAYED/AP A girl who was born amid the rubble caused by this week’s earthquake receives treatment Tuesday at a hospital in Afrin, Syria. The infant’s family died in the quake.