Syrian children still haunted by pain and trauma of deadly earthquake

When a newborn baby was rescued alive from beneath the rubble in the rebel-held Syrian town of Jandaris after earthquakes devastated Turkey and Syria in 2023, her news made headlines worldwide.

Some 60,000 people were killed after two powerful earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.7 and 7.6 shook south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023.

The "miracle baby" born under the rubble was her family's sole survivor. Now nearly a year old, she was named Afraa after her deceased mother.

When rescuers pulled the baby, whose fragile body was bruised and covered with dust, from the rubble of her home in Jandires, she was still connected to her mother by her umbilical cord.

A year on, Afraa lives with her Aunt Hala and her husband, along with their seven children.

Her adoptive father Khalil Sawadi says that her birthday, instead of being "a beautiful memory for her and us, will always remind us of the horrors and our lost family members.”

Sawadi, who was very protective of the infant, vowed to give her all possible love and care after she lost her other family members, despite the challenges and hardships of war where he lives.

"I treat her like my own children. My wife, my children and I are giving her all the love she deserves," Sawadi told dpa.

"We hope that we can give Afraa enough love to compensate for the loss of her family - whose love she was never able to feel for herself," he says.

Afraa's mother is believed to have died beneath the rubble shortly after giving birth. Her father and four siblings also died in the disaster.

"Even today, my older children still live in fear of another earthquake and worry about the death of family members or that they might lose their parents like Afraa," he says.

Afraa may be too young to remember what she went through under the rubble, but many other children still have nightmares about what they experienced that day.

In the village of Azamarin near the border with Turkey, Mundaser Ghanam spoke about his three surviving children who suffer from what is known as "crush syndrome" due to the earthquake.

Crush syndrome, or traumatic rhabdomyolysis, is a condition in which skeletal muscle cells in the extremities are destroyed by external compression. It causes severe pain and can also affect organs such as the kidneys.

"My three children who suffer from crush syndrome are still being treated to this day. When they hear rain, thunder and strong wind they start crying and want to leave the house we live in and flee to a camp nearby where we still have a tent," Ghanam, based in the countryside of Idlib, told dpa.

Like many survivors of the quake, Mohammed 6, Alaa 9, and Mustafa 17, were rescued from rubble with severe leg injuries.

"I lost one son in the earthquake, and now I am seeing my other three children suffering before my very eyes," Ghanam says.

"My children live in constant fear as well as pain," he says sadly.

Children in north-western Syria face particular protection risks after the earthquake for several reasons, with family separation one of the most serious, UNHCR protection cluster coordinator Lorena Nieto told dpa during a visit to the north-west.

She worries that children were suddenly left in charge of caring for their younger siblings and older family members after losing their parents.

"We have children now who are currently heading households, taking care of the elderly as well as other children in their homes," Neito says. This additional stress compounds the sufferings of the already traumatized children of north-western Syria.

Some 6,800 people died in the quakes across Syria, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. More than 11,000 were injured. The quakes affected 8.8 million Syrians, according to United Nations estimates. Thousands had to leave the towns where they lived.

That has brought further misery to the Syrian people, already suffering from a bloody civil war raging since 2011 that has killed more than 300,000 people.