Handout via the Syrian American Medical Society
The first time Dima was rescued from the rubble of her partially collapsed home in northern Syria, she was 7 months pregnant. Lucky to be alive, she was taken to the hospital in Afrin run by the Syrian American Medical Society where she gave birth to her son, Adnan, last Monday.
Due to a lack of aid flowing into the rebel-held areas of Syria, Dima, her husband and Adnan had no choice but to return to the destroyed building, where they tried to create a warm haven for the newborn. “After I gave birth, we went back to the same house,” Dima says in a video of her story published on the SAMS Facebook account.
Just as the family had settled back in, an aftershock struck the area, causing the building to collapse further, trapping her, her infant, and her husband under the rubble a second time.