One year on, orphaned children haunted by Syrian earthquake

Idlib: Aya al-Sudani, a bubbly toddler with a toothy smile, will mark her first birthday on Tuesday, but there will be no celebration with cake and presents. The day also marks a dark memory.

On Feb. 6, 2023, a massive earthquake hit Syria and Turkey and the baby girl was pulled alive from the rubble of her family’s house in the town of Jinderis in northern Syria. She was still attached by an umbilical cord to her dead mother.

The girl was named “Baby Aya” Aya is Arabic for “a sign from God” by hospital workers but nicknamed Afraa in memory of her mother by the relatives who are now her guardians. The newborn was the only surviving member of her immediate family after the devastating quake that killed more than 59,000 people.

She was one of hundreds of children orphaned or separated from their families by the disaster, on top of many more who have lost their parents in the country’s nearly 13-year civil war.

Some 542 children were found “unaccompanied and separated” after the earthquake throughout Syria, said Eva Hinds, a spokesperson for the United Nations children’s agency or UNICEF. Some were eventually reunited with their parents, others placed with “close relatives or extended family, and some have been supported with alternative care,” she said. Local authorities in northwest Syria say at least 537 children lost a parent to the quake, although of those only 61 were recorded as having lost both their mother and father. The real number is likely higher.