Miraculous quadruplets born in a war-torn Syria
In an icy room in a forgotten city, four tiny babies lie wrapped in the cold. It is not a place to raise a family, but that is what this mother stricken by poverty is doing day by day.

In an icy room in a forgotten Syrian city, four tiny babies lie wrapped in the cold.

The little Farah girls, Ataa, Sharoq and their brother Abdullah, rare quadruple conceived naturally, were born on December 31 in Deir ez Zor, a city destroyed in the eight-year Syrian war.

The babies live in a single room with their mother Elham Ali and her older sister Marah, 18 months of age. Marah's twin sister has already died. Ali, 33, has no home of his own, no money, no possibility of earning income. The room has no heating, no furniture or running water. Outside, the street is in ruins, houses reduced to rubble by bombs and air attacks. The stinking garbage accumulates on the top of the street.

It is not a place to raise a family. But that's what Ali is doing, day after day difficult. "Sometimes babies cry all at the same time," Ali told News Corp Australia. "It's very difficult, I had a cesarean (delivery) and I had to lie down 60 days in my bed without moving."

The miraculous birth of the quadruplets, and their survival in the most difficult circumstances, is a rare spot of sunlight that shines in the desolate landscape of Deir ez Zor. Siege for more than three years, and 80 percent of their houses destroyed. Its population was reduced by half since those who could escape fled.

Ali's house was among those reduced to a pile of stones. It was taken by the Islamic State when she and her husband fled to the countryside and were finally destroyed when the Syrian army regained control of Deir ez Zor.

She survives now thanks to the goodwill of her brother and sister-in-law, who repaired her house in the ruined city and moved her family to a single room so that Ali could have the second room.
The Syrian Arab Red Crescent gives medicines and baby formula once a month. Donations literally save the lives of their hungry babies, since Ali's anxiety and stress mean she has no milk of her own.

"Before the crisis, my husband had a factory, but in the crisis they stole everything," he said.

She had to ask for a loan to pay for the cesarean section of her babies. She has no way of giving it back to him.