Syrian baby who made a newsreader cry

Kate Silverton, a BBC newsreader, watching a rescue team look for survivors in a destroyed building after a Russian bombing campaign on the Syrian city Idleb, broke down live on camera when a rescue worker emerged clutching a one-month-old baby girl to his chest and sobbing himself.

The clip showed Abu Kifah, a Syrian Civil Defence volunteer, shifting through the rubble and then bursting into tears as he finds the baby girl who was buried after the latest series of bombs to hit the rebel-held city. Holding her tight to his chest, he got into an ambulance and took her to one of the makeshift hospitals.

The Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, had been digging for four hours before they discovered the girl. In an interview after the footage was taken, the first responder said no one could believe the child had survived the ordeal.

The White Helmets have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their life-saving work rescuing victims of airstrikes in Syria’s war zones.

Abu Kifah told Orient News: “With the help of God, we were able to recover the baby girl. Thank god, the baby girl did not have a single injury. When I held her, I thought of her as my own baby girl I took her to the hospital while I was holding her close to my chest as if she were my own daughter.”

“When I held her close to my chest, I was deeply touched.”

The fate of the child’s family is not known. On Saturday, barrel bombs hit the largest hospital in the rebel-held side of Syria’s Aleppo city, and the heart-wrenching image that emerged from this bombing was of a blood-soaked baby boy desperately clinging to a nurse after his house was hit by an airstrike. The toddler did not want to release his grip of the medical worker treating him for his injuries. We are sparing our readers the devastation of watching another child in distress.

More bombing attacks are expected in rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo — which 250,000 people still consider home — by Syrian military loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and Russian forces in their attempt to recapture them.