“Where is mom?”: The dramatic rescue of a Syrian girl after an air attack

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(CNN) - A girl in a pink T-shirt clings to a twisted metal bar that protrudes from the rubble. His legs are trapped under a roof that collapsed during an air raid in northwestern Syria, controlled by the rebels, this Thursday.

"Where is my mother?" Asks little Islam Habra, nine years old, her voice drowned in tears. A Syrian Civil Defense (White Helmets) rescuer tries to free her from the mountain of rubble.

"She is over there," replies Laith al-Abdullah, a White Helmets volunteer. "Don't cry, honey," he adds.

• LOOK: Several minors die in violent attacks in northwestern Syria

Habra's mother died after warplanes launched their offensive on the house in two air strikes, known as "double-touch attacks" in which combat aircraft attack a site and come back to affect it again, workers explained rescue who spoke with CNN. Two other children, ages three and nine, also died.

The rescue operation of Habra was recorded in a video that has circulated on social networks and was published by the White Helmets.

While a second air strike hits the neighborhood, Habra still remains trapped, but unharmed. Al-Abdullah speaks to him: "Nothing has happened!" Then, a group of men finally manages to remove it from the rubble.

"I couldn't leave the girl," Al-Abdullah told CNN. "While trying to save someone, you should keep talking until you finish the rescue," he explained.

“We could not tell him that his mother had died. We tried to make her forget the situation she was in, ”he added.

• READ: 12 dead children on the "bloodiest day" in northwestern Syria

Habra's mother was still alive when Abdullah first arrived on the scene, the rescuer said. I could hear his voice under the rubble. But after the second air attack, she fell silent. “We could no longer hear it. They killed her".

Air strikes have intensified

The dramatic video is produced when the Syrian and Russian regime have intensified artillery and airstrikes in the Idlib province, controlled by the rebels, since Monday. More than 50 people have died in the last round of offensives, according to the White Helmets, with at least 16 dead just this Thursday.

On Sunday, White Helmets volunteer Anwar Humaidi lost his wife and three children in an artillery attack, according to the rescue group.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that 50,000 Syrians in Idlib have tried to escape to the border with their country in the midst of the renewed military campaign.

"Turkey already hosts 4 million [refugees], now another 50,000 are heading to our land from Idlib (Syria)," Erdogan said from the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, on Thursday during a meeting for Muslim world leaders.

Anadolu did not provide details on whether people fleeing Idlib were admitted to Turkey.

• LOOK: A silent enemy: the buried mines that threaten civilians in Syria

Since October, more than 100,000 people in northwestern Syria have left their homes, fleeing north towards the Turkish border, according to the White Helmets. There has been a new increase in the last 48 hours, the rescue group added.

According to UN figures, Idlib province is home to more than 1.1 million of the 6.1 million internally displaced persons in Syria. The refugee camps, many of which are near the border with Turkey, are overcrowded and do not have the capacity to house the thousands who are now looking for a safer place.

The Syrian government and its Russian supporters routinely attack the area, claiming to attack "terrorists" in the area controlled by the rebels.

Idlib is a complex place in political and humanitarian terms. The rebels of the areas recovered by the regime in the last seven years have been transported here, many of them jihadists. The fighters include a mixture of foreigners, including Chinese Uighurs, Chechens and Uzbeks. Al Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate, renowned Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has a strong and growing presence in the area.

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