Swedan, a case worker at the Syrian-owned organisation Child Houses, handed over his phone to show an image of a baby no more than a few hours old.
The newborn had been abandoned by her family and found in a rubbish bin, her face bloodied by an animal scavenging for food.
Cases of child abandonment are not rare in Syria. An increasing number of infants are left on the steps of mosques, at hospitals or on the streets for reasons related to religion and poverty, some so new their bodies are still coated in vernix.
The child in the phone photograph is one of 200 that Swedan and his team of case workers at Child Houses have placed with foster families since 2021, when the organisation operated from an emergency shelter in Idlib.
At that time, the northwestern province of Idlib was held by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is now Syria’s president.
