A Syrian baby girl whose mother passed away shortly after giving birth to her amid the debris of their home after Monday's earthquake in Turkey and Syria has been given a name and a home, reports the Guardian.
She has been named “Aya” which means “A sign from God” in Arabic.
Her great-uncle, Salah al-Badren, will take her in as she is the sole survivor of her immediate family.
The rest of her family were all killed when a 7.8-magnitude quake struck Syria and neighbouring Turkey and flattened the family home in the rebel-held town of Jindayris.
Aya is currently under treatment at a medical care at a clinic in Afrin. Her uncle will take her once she is released from the hospital.
Salah al-Badren's house is in the north-west Syrian town of Jindayris which was also destroyed in the earthquake but he and his family managed to escape.
However, he and his family are now living in a tent, he told the Associated Press.
Aya was found by Jindayris rescuers on Monday afternoon, more than 10 hours after the earthquake struck, while they dug through the rubble of her parents' five-storied apartment building.
The infant was buried beneath the concrete and still had its umbilical cord attached to its mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was also deceased, along with her husband and four further children.
Aya then was rushed to a hospital in the neighbouring city of Afrin.
According to Dr Hani Maarouf of the Cihan hospital in Afrin, Abu Hadiya most likely gave birth to Aya before passing away a few hours before they were found.
“We named her Aya so that we can stop calling her a new-born baby,” he said.
“Contrary to early fears, there was no injury to her spine and her condition is getting better everyday,” he added.
Aya is one of the many orphans that the 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Monday left behind. The earthquake killed more than 21,000 people in northern Syria and southeast Turkey.
Apartment buildings came tumbling down in their thousands as a result of the early morning earthquake that woke up the residents.
Bitter cold hampered search efforts in both countries but rescuers were still scouring debris on Friday nearly 100 hours after the massive earthquake in one of the region's worst disasters for a century.
