JINDERIS, Syria: Residents digging through a collapsed building in a northwest Syrian town discovered a crying infant whose mother appears to have given birth to her while buried underneath the rubble from this week’s devastating earthquake, relatives and a doctor said Tuesday.
The newborn girl’s umbilical cord was still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead, they said. The baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse Monday in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman, a relative, told The Associated Press.
Monday’s pre-dawn 7.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by multiple aftershocks, caused widespread destruction across southern Turkiye and northern Syria. Thousands have been killed, with the toll mounting as more bodies are discovered. But dramatic rescues have also occurred. Elsewhere in Jinderis, a young girl was found alive, buried in concrete under the wreckage of her home.
The newborn baby was rescued Monday afternoon, more than 10 hours after the quake struck. After rescuers dug her out, a female neighbor cut the cord, and she and others rushed with the baby to a children’s hospital in the nearby town of Afrin, where she has been kept on an incubator, said the doctor treating the baby, Dr. Hani Maarouf.
Video of the rescue circulating on social media shows the moments after the baby was removed from the rubble, as a man lifts her up, her umbilical cord still dangling, and rushes away as another man throws him a blanket to wrap her in.
The baby’s body temperature had fallen to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and she had bruises, including a large one on her back, but she is in stable condition, he said.
Abu Hadiya must have been conscious during the birth and must have died soon after, Maarouf said. He estimated the baby was born several hours before being found, given the amount her temperature had dropped. If the girl had been born just before the quake, she wouldn’t have survived so many hours in the cold, he said.
“Had the girl been left for an hour more, she would have died,” he said.
When the earthquake hit before dawn on Monday, Abu Hadiya, her husband and four children apparently tried to rush out of their apartment building, but the structure collapsed on them. Their bodies were found near the building’s entrance, said Sleiman, who arrived at the scene just after the newborn was discovered.
“She was found in front of her mother’s legs,” he said. “After the dust and rocks were removed the girl was found alive.”
Maarouf said the baby weighed 3.175 kilograms (7 pounds), an average weight for a newborn, and so was carried nearly to term. “Our only concern is the bruise on her back, and we have to see whether there is any problem with her spinal cord,” he said, saying she has been moving her legs and arms normally.
Jinderis, located in the rebel-held enclave of northwest Syria, was hard hit in the quake, with dozens of buildings that collapsed.
Abu Hadiya and her family were among the millions of Syrians who fled to the rebel-held territory from other parts of the country. They were originally from the village of Khsham in eastern Deir Ezzor province, but left in 2014 after the Daesh group captured their village, said a relative who identified himself as Saleh Al-Badran.
In 2018, the family moved to Jinderis after the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, an umbrella for several insurgent groups, captured the town from US-backed Kurdish led fighters, Sleiman said.
On Tuesday, Abu Hadiya and the girl’s father Abdullah Turki Mleihan, along with their four other children were laid to rest in a cemetery on the outskirts of Jinderis.
Back inside the town, rescue operations were still ongoing in their building hoping to find survivors.
The town saw another dramatic rescue Monday evening, when a toddler was pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building. Video from the White Helmets, the emergency service in the region, shows a rescuer digging through crushed concrete amid twisted metal until the little girl, named Nour, appeared. The girl, still half buried, looks up dazedly as they tell her, “Dad is here, don’t be scared. … Talk to your dad, talk.”
A rescuer cradled her head in his hands and tenderly wiped dust from around her eyes before she was pulled out.
The quake has wreaked new devastation in the opposition-held zone, centered on the Syrian province of Idlib, which was already been battered by years of war and strained by the influx of displaced people from the country’s civil war, which began in 2011.
Monday’s earthquake killed hundreds across the area, and the toll was continually mounting with hundreds believed still lost under the rubble. The quake completely or partially toppled more than 730 buildings and damaged thousands more in the territory, according to the White Helmets, as the area’s civil defense is known.
The White Helmets have years of experience in digging victims out from buildings crushed by bombardment from Russian warplanes or Syrian government forces. An earthquake is a new disaster for them.
“They are both catastrophes — a catastrophe that has been ongoing for 12 years and the criminal has not been held accountable, and this one is a natural catastrophe,” said the deputy head of the White Helmets, Munir Mustafa.
Asked if there was a difference between rescue work in the quake and during the war, he said, “We cannot compare death with death … What we are witnessing today is death on top of death.”
Newborn, toddler saved from rubble in quake-hit Syrian town
https://arab.news/8ebm2
Newborn, toddler saved from rubble in quake-hit Syrian town
- The newborn girl’s umbilical cord was still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead
- Baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse Monday in the town of Jinderis
Israel: 2 soldiers wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting
- The attack was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Huwara in less than a month
- One soldier was seriously wounded and the second was in moderate condition
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely, Saturday evening in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank, the latest in months-long violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
The attack was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Hawara in less than a month. One soldier was seriously wounded and the second was in moderate condition, the military said. A manhunt was launched as forces sealed roads leading to Hawara.
No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the shooting attack, but Hamas, the militant group ruling the Gaza Strip, praised it.
“The resistance in the West Bank can surprise the occupation every time and the occupation cannot enjoy safety,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Violence has surged in recent months in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amid near-daily Israeli arrest raids in Palestinian-controlled areas and a string of Palestinian attacks.
US-backed regional efforts to defuse tensions have led to the meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials in Jordan and Egypt respectively, where parties hoped to prevent a further escalation during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
On Feb. 27, when Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Jordan’s Aqaba, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israelis in Hawara. Another shooting attack in Hawara took place as the parties met again in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, wounding two Israelis.
Eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks have killed 15 Israelis in the same period.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.
Iraq halts northern crude exports after winning arbitration case against Turkiye
- The decision to stop shipments of 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude relates to a case from 2014
- Baghdad deems KRG exports via Turkish Ceyhan port as illegal
BAGHDAD: Iraq halted crude exports from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and northern Kirkuk fields on Saturday, an oil official told Reuters, after the country won a longstanding arbitration case against Turkiye.
The decision to stop shipments of 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude relates to a case from 2014, when Baghdad claimed that Turkiye violated a joint agreement by allowing the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to export oil through a pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Baghdad deems KRG exports via Turkish Ceyhan port as illegal.
“Iraq was officially informed by the International Court of Arbitration [about the] final ruling on Thursday and it was in favor of Iraq,” a senior oil ministry official said.
Turkiye informed Iraq that it will respect the arbitration ruling, a source said.
Turkish shipping officials told Iraqi employees at Turkiye’s Ceyhan oil export hub that no ship will be allowed to load Kurdish crude without the approval of the Iraqi government, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Turkiye subsequently halted the pumping of Iraqi crude from the pipeline that leads to Ceyhan, a separate document seen by Reuters showed.
On Saturday, Iraq stopped pumping oil through its side of the pipeline which runs from its northern Kirkuk oil fields, one of the officials told Reuters.
Iraq had been pumping 370,000 bpd of KRG crude and 75,000 bpd of federal crude through the pipeline before it was halted, according to a source familiar with pipeline operations.
“A delegation from the oil ministry will travel to Turkiye soon to meet energy officials to agree on new mechanism to export Iraq’s northern crude oil in line with the arbitration ruling,” a second oil ministry official said.
PRODUCTION RISK
The final hearing on the arbitration case was held in Paris in July 2022, but it took months for the arbitrators, the secretariat of the arbitration court and the International Chamber of Commerce to approve the verdict, a source familiar with the process told Reuters.
The impact on the KRG’s oil production depends heavily on the duration of the Iraqi Turkish Pipeline (ITP) closure, sources said, adding this would cause significant uncertainty to oil firms operating in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq (KRI).
A cessation of exports through the pipeline would trigger a collapse of the KRI economy, according to a letter last year to US representatives from Dallas-based HKN Energy, which operates in the region.
Turkiye would need to source more crude from Iran and Russia to make up for the loss of northern Iraqi oil, the letter said.
Analysts have warned that companies could withdraw from the region unless the environment improved.
Foreign oil firms, including HKN Energy and Gulf Keystone, have linked their investment plans this year to the reliability of KRG payments, which face months of delays.
Death toll in US strikes on pro-Iran targets in Syria rises to 19 -war monitor
- US carried out strikes in eastern Syria in response to a drone attack on Thursday that left one American contractor dead
Beirut: The death toll in US air strikes on pro-Iran installations in eastern Syria has risen to 19 fighters, a Syrian war monitor said on Saturday, in one of the deadliest exchanges between the US and Iran-aligned forces in years.
The US carried out strikes in eastern Syria in response to a drone attack on Thursday that left one American contractor dead, and another one wounded along with five US troops. Washington said the attack was of Iranian origin.
The retaliatory strikes by the US on what it said were facilities in Syria used by groups affiliated to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps left a total of 19 dead, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The war monitor said air raids killed three Syrian troops, 11 Syrian fighters in pro-government militias and five non-Syrian fighters who were aligned with the government.
The monitor’s head Rami Abdel Rahman could not specify the nationalities of the foreigners. Reuters was unable to independently confirm the toll.
The initial exchange prompted a string of tit-for-tat strikes. Another US service member was wounded, according to officials, and local sources said suspected US rocket fire hit more locations in eastern Syria.
President Joe Biden on Friday warned Iran that the United States would “act forcefully” to protect Americans.
Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar Assad during Syria’s 12-year conflict.
Iran’s proxy militias, including Lebanese group Hezbollah and pro-Tehran Iraqi groups, hold sway in swathes of eastern, southern and northern Syria and in suburbs around the capital.
Tehran’s growing entrenchment in Syria has drawn regular Israeli air strikes but American aerial raids are more rare. The US has been raising the alarm about Iran’s drone program.
African migrants stuck in Tunisia say racism persists after crackdown
- ‘We need evacuation, Tunisia is not safe, there’s no future here when you have this color, it is a crime to have this color’
BEIRUT: Weeks after a violent crackdown on migrants in Tunisia that triggered a perilous rush to leave by smuggler boats for Italy, many African nationals are still homeless and jobless and some say they still face racist attacks.
Outside the UN refugee agency in Tunis, dozens of African migrants stood protesting this week by the temporary camp where they have lived, including with children, since authorities urged landlords to force them from their homes.
“We need evacuation. Tunisia is not safe. No one has a future here when you have this color. It is a crime to have this color,” said Josephus Thomas, pointing to the skin on his forearm.
In announcing the crackdown on Feb. 21, President Kais Saied said illegal immigration was a criminal conspiracy to change Tunisia’s demography, language the African Union described as “racialized hate speech.”
US Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf said Saied’s comments had unleashed “attacks and a tidal wave of racist rhetoric,” with rights groups saying hundreds of migrants reported being attacked or insulted.
Saied and Tunisia’s foreign minister have rejected accusations that he or the government are racist and they announced steps to ease visa regulations for Africans and reminded police of anti-racism laws.
While the official crackdown appeared to end weeks ago, migrants say they still face abuse.
“People told me ‘since you are in our country after the president’s speech, don’t you have any dignity?’ I kept silent and they told me I am dirt,” said Awadhya Hasan Amine, a Sudanese refugee outside the UNHCR headquarters in Tunis.
Amine has lived in Tunis for five years after fleeing Sudan and then Libya with her husband. Now 30, she has been living on the street outside the UNHCR headquarters since local people pelted her house in the capital’s Rouad district with rocks.
“We want to live in a place of safety, stability and peace. We don’t want problems in Tunisia,” she said.
Although some West African countries evacuated hundreds of their citizens earlier this month, many remain stuck in Tunisia, unable to support themselves let alone afford passage home or pay smugglers hundreds of dollars to ferry them to Europe.
“Tunisia is an African country. Why do they do racist things to us?” said Moumin Sou, from Mali, who was sacked from his job working behind a bar after the president’s speech and was beaten up the next day by a man in the street who stole his money.
Sou wants to return home, he said, but many others are determined to travel on to Europe.
In the wake of the crackdown, in which police detained hundreds of undocumented migrants and authorities urged employers to lay them off and landlords to evict them, smuggler crossings to Italy have surged.
Tunisian National Guard official Houssem Jbeli said on Wednesday alone the coast guard had stopped 30 boats carrying more than 2,000 people. On the same day and the following day four boats sank, with five people drowned, authorities said.
540,000 children in Yemen ‘starving’: UNICEF
- The agency pleads for more aid as a child dies every 10 minutes
JEDDAH: More than 540,000 children under the age of 5 in Yemen are suffering life-threatening severe acute malnutrition and a child dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes, the UN said on Friday.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF warned that it could be forced to slash support for children in Yemen without a funding boost.
A total of 11 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF says.
It said it required $484 million to continue assistance this year, but the UN raised only $1.2 billion for all its agencies in Yemen at a pledging conference in Switzerland last month, well short of the $4.3 billion target.
“The funding gap UNICEF continued to face through 2022 and since the beginning of 2023 is putting the required humanitarian response for children in Yemen at risk,” the organization said said.
“If funding is not received, UNICEF might be forced to scale down its vital assistance for vulnerable children.”
The conflict in Yemen began in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia seized the capital, Sanaa, in a coup. An Arab coalition intervened the following year to support the legitimate government, and launched their first assaults against Houthi positions on March 26, 2015.
A truce expired last year, but fighting has remained largely on hold.
More than 11,000 children are known to have been killed or maimed since the conflict escalated in 2015.
Fighting in Yemen has triggered what the UN describes as one of the world's worst humanitarian tragedies. Itsays more than 21.7 million people, two-thirds of Yemen's population, will need humanitarian assistance this year.
