Aya — Arabic for 'a sign from God' — was born under the rubble of her family's earthquake-shattered home and has now left the hospital and gone to her new home, with her paternal aunt's family.
The girl had been at the hospital since hours after the Feb. 6 earthquake. She was discharged Saturday and her aunt and uncle adopted her and gave her a new name, Afraa, after her late mother.
On Monday, Afraa was being cared for by her uncle, Khalil al-Sawadi, who is now living with relatives in the town of Jinderis in northern Syria after his home was also destroyed in the earthquake. Al-Sawadi and his wife have four daughters and two sons and now Afraa will be living with her cousins. For days, al-Sawadi was worried that someone might kidnap her and he visited her frequently at the hospital.
Rescue workers in Jinderis discovered the dark-haired 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 said he took a razor from his pocked and cut the umbilical cord and handed the girl to another cousin and they rushed her to a nearby hospital where he was told that the girl was in good health. They drove to another hospital in the nearby town of Afrin where they were told it was full and unable to take more patients. They continued to a second hospital, which was also full, before reaching the children's hospital where she was kept until Saturday.
The devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey's southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks. Many communities in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria were reduced to piles of broken concrete and twisted metal. More than 44,000 people have been reported dead, a toll expected to rise as search teams find more bodies.
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