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Ofra, six months after her rescue, is healthy and happy
Article informationAuthor, Fathi BenaissaRole, BBC News Arabic
2 hours ago
When they found Afra under the rubble of a house destroyed by an earthquake in Syria, she was still connected through the umbilical cord to her mother, who breathed her last after giving Afra life.
The video clip of the rescue of the newborn, Afra, captured the hearts of people around the world, who were following the news of the devastating earthquake last February.
Ofra has recovered from the bruises she suffered the moment she was rescued. She has now completed her sixth month of a life full of health and happiness, in the care of her aunt, her husband, and their seven children, in the village of Jenderes, not far from the Turkish border.
Khaled Al-Sawadi, her aunt’s husband, says that Ofra “is a very quiet child, and she reminds me of her father and sister Nawara, especially when she smiles. They all died in the earthquake.”
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Afra in the arms of Khalil, her aunt’s husband
On the sixth day of last February, after a devastating earthquake struck the Jenderes area, Afra’s mother was in labor under the rubble of her house. She had already given birth before rescuers found her.
And Afra is the only survivor of her family from the earthquake, which killed her father (Abu Rudeina) and her four brothers, as well as her mother.
Khalil Al-Sawadi says that when his wife saw the collapse of Abu Rudeina’s house, she started screaming, “My brother, my brother.”
Khalil vividly remembers the moment Ofra was pulled out from under the rubble: “The roof had overshadowed them. Someone called me and told me that they had found a woman’s body. As soon as I arrived, I started digging, before I heard a sound. This was the sound of Ofra, who was still connected.” her mother through the umbilical cord.
“We were determined to save her,” says Khalil. “We knew it was the only memory left of all her family.”
Social media activists circulated a touching video clip of the moment of saving Afra. The video found an easy way into the hearts of millions around the world.
As for the little girl, she was taken to a hospital and given her initial name, “Aya,” which means “miracle” in the Arabic language.
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Afra received hospital care after she was pulled from the rubble
The doctor who took care of Afra said that she arrived at the hospital suffering from bruises, bruises and breathing difficulties.
Six months later, the bruises disappeared, and Afra is in excellent health, according to her aunt’s husband.
Khalil Al-Sawadi says: “Immediately after the earthquake, Afra was suffering from some chest problems due to the dust under the rubble where she was found. I took her to the doctor to be examined and she is now in excellent health.”
However, the past six months, which are the entire life of Afra, have been tough and tough. While the newborn was still in the hospital, thousands of people around the world offered to adopt her, and then Khalil and his wife Hala had to prove their kinship to the child before they were allowed to adopt her.
“I felt that they were not willing to hand over Ofra to us,” says Khalil.
Hala had to take a DNA test. Khalil says, “At first it was just a blood test, but after a week they called us again. They took another sample of my wife’s blood and hair. Then it took 10 days for them to talk to us.”
There was so much interest in Afra’s story that Khalil and his family worried that the little girl might be kidnapped while they waited for the result of the DNA test.
As a precaution, the Khalil family members used to spend as much time as possible in the hospital not far from Afra’s place.
Khalil says, “Many members of the civilian and military police helped us secure the little girl.”
With the results of the DNA test, the blood relationship between Afra and Hala (the father’s sister) was confirmed, before the doctors allowed the girl to be discharged from the hospital.
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Ofra now lives with her aunt, her husband and their seven children
The first thing Khalil and Hala did was give the baby a new name, Afra – after her deceased mother.
“Now she is one of my children,” says Khalil. “I can’t be away from her for long.”
He says, “When she grows up, I will tell her what happened and show her pictures of her mother, father and siblings. We buried them all the next day in a nearby village called Haj Iskandar, where civil defense personnel had dug mass graves for the earthquake victims.”
Hala was pregnant at the same time as Afra’s mother, and three days after the birth of Afra, Hala gave birth to a baby girl as well, and they named this baby “Ata” after another aunt who was killed by the earthquake.
However, the Khalil family’s house in the village of Jenderes has been severely damaged in a way that it is no longer possible to continue under its roof for a longer period.
“There are huge cracks that don’t feel safe. I lost my house and my car. It’s like starting from scratch. I can’t even afford to send my kids to school,” says Khalil.
The Khalil family lived in a tent in one of the camps for two months, as life was “very difficult, it was very hot, and we had to take care of two babies at the same time.”
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Khalil has found a new home for his family, but he fears he may not be able to keep it for long
Finally, Khalil managed to find a house to rent where his family now lives, but they fear that they won’t be able to stay in this new house for much longer.
The rent for this house is “very high, and I don’t know if we can keep it for much longer,” says Khalil.
People have offered Khalil to move to the UAE or the UK, but he has refused because he is “still worried [إذا هو انتقل للعيش في الخارج] from taking Afra from him.”
Khalil says that there are “people who live under harsher and more difficult conditions in the village of Jenderes”.
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A picture taken by a drone showing the extent of the devastation in the village of Jenderes
Jenderes was one of the areas most affected by the earthquake, which left thousands of families in a condition similar to that of the Khalil family.
And last February, a series of earthquakes struck areas in northern Syria and southern Turkey, killing about 50,000 people, including at least 4,500 in Syria, where about 50,000 families have been displaced as a result of those earthquakes, according to the United Nations.
Getting aid to the four million people living in these opposition-held areas of Syria is a daunting task.
2023-08-05 02:56:10
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