It was one of the most tragic stories to come out of the deadly earthquakes in Syria and Turkey in February. And now it’s being hailed as a miracle.
The weeks-old baby girl who was rescued after being buried in the rubble in Turkey for 128 hours has been reunited with her mother, who for months was thought to have died in the disaster.
The “miracle baby” was initially put under the care of the state in the capital city of Ankara, and named Gizem, meaning mystery, by nurses. DNA analysis, however, revealed that her mother, Yasemin Begdaş, was being treated for her injuries at a hospital about 300 miles away, in the city of Adana.
With a quick private flight, the baby — whose real name is Vetin Begdaş — was finally with her mother again after 54 days apart.
“To witness their happiness is an emotional and beautiful moment for us, too. Uniting a mother with her child is one of the most precious deeds in the world,” Turkey’s Minister of Family and Social Services, Derya Yanik, said in a video posted to Twitter, per a translation from CBS News.
In a press release, Yanik noted that baby Vetin’s story has been a miracle from the beginning. “The fact that [she] survived and had no health problems affected us all,” she said. Yanik added that though the child is now in the care of her mother, the state will continue to support the family — “Gizem is now our baby, too,” she said.
And this miracle is not the only one: The ministry told CBS that Vetin is one of 1,774 children who have been returned to their families after being separated in the earthquakes.
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