“Aya: A sign from God” - Syrian baby girl whose mom died while giving birth during earthquake, named

A Syrian baby girl whose mother died after giving birth to her under the rubble of their home during this week’s earthquake now has a name: Aya, Arabic for “a sign from God”.

With her parents and all her siblings killed, her great-uncle, Salah al-Badran, will take her in once she is released from the hospital.

However, his own house in the north-west Syrian town of Jenderis was destroyed, too. He and his family managed to escape the one-storey building, but now he and his household of 11 people are living in a tent, he told the Associated Press.

Rescue workers in Jenderis discovered Aya on Monday afternoon, more than 10 hours after the quake hit, as they were digging through the wreckage of the five-storey apartment building where her parents lived.

Buried under the concrete, the baby still was connected by umbilical cord to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead along with her husband and four other children. The baby was rushed to a hospital in the nearby town of Afrin.

Aya is one of untold numbers of orphans left by Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake, which killed more than 21,000 people in northern Syria and south-eastern Turkey.