Mother reunites with ‘miracle baby’ in Turkey nearly two months after earthquake

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Istanbul, April 3

A mother has been reunited with her baby in southern Turkey after a DNA test confirmed it was her daughter, almost two months after a devastating earthquake ripped through the region, the country’s family ministry said.

You probably remember this picture of the baby who spent 128 hours under rubble after an earthquake in Turkey. It was reported that the baby’s mom died.

Turns out, the mom is alive! She was treated in a different hospital. After 54 days apart and a DNA test, they are together… pic.twitter.com/T7B0paUFxL

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 2, 2023

The three-and-a-half-month old “miracle baby”, called Vetin, was pulled out of the rubble of a building in the province of Hatay more than five days after the February 6 quake with no health problems, a ministry statement said.

The minister handed her over to her mother Yasemin Begdas at a hospital in the city of Adana 54 days after the disaster.

“Reuniting a mother and her child is one of the most precious tasks in the world,” Minister of Family and Social Services Derya Yanik was quoted as saying.

After initially being cared for at a hospital in Adana, the baby had been taken by the presidential plane to be cared for by authorities in Ankara.

A DNA test revealed that Yasemin was her mother and the baby was flown back to Adana, where the reunion took place at the hospital treating her.

More than 56,000 people were killed by the February 6 earthquake and subsequent tremors, with 50,000 of those in Turkey and the remainder in Syria.

The baby’s father and two brothers died in the quake, the ministry statement said.