In Syria, the little orphans of the earthquake

In a hospital in northwest Syria, eight-year-old Hanaa asks every day for news of her parents and her little sister: she does not yet know that she is the only one among them to have survived the earthquake

In Syria, the little orphans of the earthquake

In a hospital in northwest Syria, eight-year-old Hanaa asks every day for news of her parents and her little sister: she does not yet know that she is the only one among them to have survived the earthquake.

The earthquake that devastated entire regions of Syria and Turkey on February 6, killing nearly 40,000 people, left countless orphans.

With the catastrophic and ever-increasing death toll, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) fears "a terrifying number" of orphans because "many, many children will have lost their parents" in the tragedy.

Hanaa was pulled from the rubble 33 hours after the earthquake in the town of Harim, near the border with Turkey, where the building in which she lived with her family collapsed.

"We tried to save her father, a rescuer, her mother and her sister, but they all died," said Abdallah Charif, the girl's uncle, at the nearby Maarrat Misrine hospital where she was admitted.

“She keeps asking about her father, mother and four-year-old sister” Waad. "We don't dare tell him the truth, we answer that they are in another section of the hospital," he adds.

On her hospital bed, surrounded by balloons for Valentine's Day, the little girl with clear eyes tries to smile despite her facial injuries and her hand cast.

Bassel Stefi, the doctor following the survivor, explains that she arrived in critical condition.

"She was dehydrated after more than 30 hours under the rubble without eating or drinking in this cold." "She has now been discharged from the intensive care unit, her condition is stable, but she is at risk of having an arm amputated," he says.

Hanaa's uncle fears that the girl's condition will worsen if she learns of the death of her loved ones, and prefers to call on specialists to tell her the news.

"Children are at serious psychological risk because of the scale of the shock," Samah Hadid, an official with the Norwegian Refugee Council in the Middle East, told AFP.

Hanaa is left with only her grandparents and uncles to raise her in this rebel-held region, where much of the population is itself displaced from other war-torn areas of Syria.

According to UNICEF, more than seven million children were affected by the earthquake in the two countries, including 2.5 million in Syria.

For many children in this country, "it's a trauma that comes on top of other traumas," UNICEF spokesman James Elder told AFP.

"Every child under the age of twelve has known nothing but conflict, violence and displacement" in Syria, he adds.

In the same locality of Harim, where some 35 buildings did not survive the earthquake, three-year-old Arslan Berri was the only one to survive the collapse of his building.

"The building where my sister lived collapsed. We spent three days digging, we found her lifeless father hugging her and holding her two other children by the hand," says her uncle Ezzat Hamidi, 30. years.

Their mother was found about two meters away, he said.

"My nephew has lost his father, his mother and his brothers. He risks having his legs amputated", adds the young man, who runs from hospital to hospital with the little one in a state of shock to provide him with the necessary care.

"The child had his lower limbs crushed" under the rubble, said doctor Omar al-Ali of the children's hospital in Sarmada, adding that he also suffered from problems in the internal organs.

"We have saved many children who are still alive, but also other dead ones," Obada Zikra, a White Helmets leader who leads rescue operations in rebel areas in Syria, told AFP.

Among them was a newborn, still connected by the umbilical cord to his deceased mother, who lost all his family members in a building in Jandairis, near the Turkish border.

“We felt great joy every time we took out a living child,” adds the rescuer. "But we hope that the children of our region, who have known only bombardments and displacements and have never enjoyed stability, can grow up like other children in the world, and go to school."

15/02/2023 14:04:24 - Maarrat Misrine (Syrie) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP