A girl born in northern Syria during this month’s devastating earthquake, formerly known as Aya, was adopted by her aunt and uncle after her parents and siblings died in the disaster, Reuters reported.

Images widely shared on social media after the quake showed a rescue worker climbing down from the rubble carrying a small child covered in dust.

• Turkey: a man who tried to steal a child from a hospital was detained

The newborn was later identified as the child of Abdullah and Aphra Mleihan, who died in the earthquake along with other children in the rebel-held town of Jandaris in Syria’s Aleppo province.

The child was treated at Jihan Hospital, further west in the Afrin district, until doctors could verify the identities of her relatives.

On Saturday, her aunt Hala and her uncle Khalil Al-Sawadi finally picked up their granddaughter, whom they named Afraa after her mother, who died under the rubble.

“This girl means so much to us because there is no one left in her family except this child. She will be a memory for me, her aunt and all our relatives in her mother’s and father’s village,” she said. Sawadi told Reuters.

The man carried Aphraa, wrapped in a pink blanket, on one arm and his newborn daughter, Ataa, wrapped in a blue one, on the other arm. Ataa was born three days after the earthquake, and Sawadi said she would raise them together.

“There were legal procedures to prove the genetic relationship, as well as a DNA test,” he told Reuters.

More than 5,800 people have died across Syria since the February 6 earthquake, mostly in the rebel-held north, which has already suffered years of bombing since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

The earthquake also caused more than 39,000 deaths in Turkey.