A woman and her newborn baby have been rescued from the rubble of her earthquake-hit home twice in a week in Syria, a charity organization revealed.
Dima was seven months pregnant when last Monday’s earthquake caused part of her house in Jindayris to fall down.
She suffered minor injuries and later gave birth to a boy, Adnan, at a hospital in Afrin supported by the Syrian American Medical Society (Sams).
They returned to the house, only for it to collapse fully three days later.
Adnan was brought back to Afrin’s al-Shifa Hospital by rescuers in a critical condition, suffering from severe dehydration and jaundice, while Dima was treated for a serious lower limb injury.
Dr Abdulkarim Hussein al-Ibrahim, a paediatrician, told the BBC via WhatsApp on Monday that the baby was responding well to treatment.
“Adnan’s condition… has significantly improved,” he said. “We are just feeding him and [providing] the rest of his needs through intravenous drips.”
Video footage released by Sams showed Adnan sleeping peacefully inside an incubator with his wrist hooked up to a drip.
Dima has been discharged from hospital once again and is living in a tent along with her husband, Abdul Majid, and their nine nieces and nephews.
She has been travelling to Afrin to visit Adnan in hospital every day.
Her family was forced to return to her partially destroyed home after she gave birth because there was no alternative shelter available in Jindayris, one of the worst-hit towns in opposition-held north-western Syria.
They have also not received any other aid since the earthquake, like tens of thousands of others who have been affected.
Even before the disaster, 4.1 million people – most of them women and children – were relying on humanitarian assistance to survive in the region, which is the last bastion of the jihadists and rebels who have been fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad for 12 years.
Air and artillery strikes on hospitals there – the vast majority of which have been blamed on the government and its ally Russia – had also left only half of them functional. In 2021, shellfire destroyed parts of al-Shifa Hospital and killed staff and patients.
As of Monday, only 58 lorries carrying aid from UN agencies had arrived from Turkey via Bab al-Hawa in Idlib province – the sole border crossing that the UN is authorised to use to deliver humanitarian assistance. However, on Monday evening the UN said the Syrian government was opening two more border crossings.
The deliveries have been delayed by damaged roads and other logistical issues in Turkey and have not included the heavy machinery and other specialist equipment needed by the White Helmets, whose first responders operate in opposition-held areas.
Dr Ibrahim said there was an acute shortage of the medicines, other medical supplies, beds and blankets needed to treat the many injured people still being pulled from the rubble.
“No hospital has the capacity to accommodate this large number of injuries,” he warned. “[Everywhere] is full.”
The UN has said that 55 health facilities in the region were damaged by the earthquake and that 31 are partially functional or have suspended their services.
BBC