Born under rubble: girl saved from earthquake in Syria adopted

A baby girl who was born under the rubble of her family’s earthquake-shattered home in Syria has left the hospital and gone to her new home, where she was with her paternal aunt’s family.

The girl had been at the hospital since hours after the February 6 earthquake. She was discharged Saturday and her aunt and uncle adopted her and gave her a new name, Afraa, after her late mother.

Afraa’s mother died in the quake along with her father and four siblings.

Afraa’s story has been widely shared in news reports and people from around the world have offered to help her, with some saying they would like to adopt her. However, the relatives who took her in said that, however hard their circumstances, the best place for the infant is with family.

On Monday, Afraa was being cared for by her uncle, who is now living with relatives in northern Syria after his home was also destroyed in the earthquake. He and his wife have four daughters and two sons and now Afraa will be living with her cousins. He added that days after Afraa was born, his wife gave birth to a daughter, Attaa.

A hospital official said Afraa was handed over to her aunt’s family days after a DNA test was conducted to make sure the girl and her aunt are biologically related.

Rescue workers in Jinderis discovered the baby girl more than 10 hours after the quake as they were digging through the wreckage of the five-story apartment building where her parents lived.

Al-Sawadi recounted how he rushed out of his home when the earthquake happened and found that the nearby building where Afraa’s family lived had been reduced to a pile of rubble. Along with others from the area, al-Sawadi said they dug through the rubble in heavy rain for hours until he grew tired and sat to rest nearby.

The girl was kept in hospital for nearly two weeks until the paperwork for her adoption was done.