One year after the devastating earthquake that struck Syria, orphaned children are adjusting to the loss little by little

IDLIB, Syria — Aya Al-Sudani, the little girl with a toothy smile, will celebrate her first birthday on Tuesday, but there will be no celebration with cake and gifts. The day also marks a dark memory.

On February 6, 2023, a massive earthquake struck Syria and Turkey, and the infant girl was recovered alive from under the rubble of her family’s home in the town of Jindires, northern Syria. She was still connected by the umbilical cord to her deceased mother.

Hospital staff named the girl “Baby Aya” – Aya meaning “sign from God” – but her relatives, who are now her guardians, named her Afra in memory of her mother. The newborn was the only surviving member of her immediate family. A family after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 59 thousand people.

She was one of hundreds of children who were orphaned or separated from their families due to the disaster, in addition to many children who lost their parents in the civil war that broke out in the country nearly 13 years ago.

Eva Hinds, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, said about 542 children were found “unaccompanied and separated” after the earthquake across Syria. Some were eventually reunited with their parents, while others were placed with “close relatives or extended families, and others were supported with foster care,” she added.

Local authorities in northwestern Syria say that at least 537 children lost a parent due to the earthquake, although only 61 children were registered as having lost their mother and father. The real number is likely to be higher.

A year later, these children have begun to adapt to their new reality, with most now living with their extended families while smaller numbers have ended up in foster homes or orphanages.

For many of them, losing their parents in the earthquake was just the latest in a series of tragedies.

“Almost everyone in Syria at this point has a personal connection to loss due to the conflict,” said Catherine Achilles, spokeswoman for Save the Children’s Syria response office. “It's not something that kids have to learn to live with…having to deal with loss, dealing with displacement, dealing with the loss of family and community.”

Yasmine Chahoud was 11 years old when the earthquake struck. Her family had been displaced from her hometown of Maarat al-Numan to the town of Armanaz in northwestern Syria, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) away. Despite the war, she remembers spending a lot of time playing and laughing with her brothers after school.

On February 6, their house collapsed, and she was buried under rubble for 20 hours before rescue workers pulled her out. Yasmine's arm and leg were shattered, requiring a series of surgeries. For the first few weeks, no one had the courage to tell the badly injured girl that her family was dead.

Ghaitha Al-Ibrahim, a social worker at the Syrian American Medical Society who followed her case, said: “When she arrived at the hospital, the child, Yasmine, was in a state of shock and did not understand what happened.”

The girl stayed for several months in an orphanage to be close to the hospital and because she needed intensive physical therapy. She now lives with her grandfather, aunt, uncle and cousins, with whose help, she said, “I have been able to get through a lot of difficult steps.” Although she still has difficulty walking, she has returned to school. She eventually hopes to become a pharmacist.

Yasmine said that the first period was “very, very difficult, but thank God, I am getting better.”

In the town of Harem in Idlib Governorate, where 8-year-old Hanaa Sharif now lives with her grandfather and uncle’s family, she loves playing with her baby cousin, who was born after the earthquake, and who was named Mahmoud at Hanaa’s request after her death. dad.

Hana's parents and sister died in the earthquake, and Hana was trapped under the rubble for 33 hours. At first, doctors thought her hand would have to be amputated.

Her uncle, Ali Sharif, said: “She asked about her family, her mother and father, and we told her little by little that they had gone to heaven.”

Aladdin Junaid, founder of Children's Homes, an NGO that runs two children's shelters, said that after the earthquake, “some children were found on the streets, in garbage dumps, in front of mosques, or among abandoned fields.” Orphaned or abandoned children. The organization works to reunite them with family members or place them in foster homes. Islam does not generally recognize legal adoption, but encourages long-term guardianship of orphans.

Their center was badly damaged in the earthquake – although staff and children were able to get out safely – and they had to quickly secure another site so they could receive the influx of children who were orphaned or separated from their families because of the quake. Some shelter employees buried their loved ones and then returned to work.

Soon they were caring for about 100 children in their shelters, which had previously hosted no more than 35 children.

Junaid said: “About 70% of them, we were able to find their relatives, and 30%, their families were all dead or the relatives had abandoned the child.”

In those cases, the group worked to place children with vetted foster families, he said. “An orphanage is not the right place for any child to start their life.”

Despite the tragedy of her birth, baby Aya – or Afra – was one of the lucky ones. With no memory of the family she lost, the only parents she knows are her aunt and her cousin's husband, who took care of her. Their four daughters and two sons became like her sisters and brothers.

The family owns an apartment in Jenderes where they stay during the day, but at night they gather in a tent in one of the area's displacement camps, still afraid to sleep in a concrete building for fear that another earthquake will hit them on the head. Since the earthquake, the area lacks jobs and schools.

The girl's uncle and guardian, Khalil Al-Sawadi, said he hopes she will have the opportunity to study – perhaps outside Syria – and “obtain the highest academic degrees, not like my children.”

The family will not celebrate her first birthday because “this day is a painful memory.” But he said: “I have hope at the same time because of Afra's presence, and we will tell her this memory when she grows up.”

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Sewell reported from Beirut.

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