Syrian girl, who tweeted from Aleppo, documents horrors in new memoir
BEIRUT: A Syrian girl, whose tweets from war-torn Aleppo captured a worldwide audience, has written a harrowing memoir of life under siege, recalling her terror of daily bombardments and her sorrow at being kept out of class.
In ‘Dear World’, to be published on Tuesday, eight-yearold Bana Alabed, who now lives in Turkey, delivers an unadulterated account of war through the eyes of a child.
She writes vividly about the death of her best friend and neighbour Yasmin, killed when a bomb fell near her house.
"Then one of the men lifted a body out of the rocks, and there was more screaming from Yasmin's mum. It was Yasmin. She was floppy like she was asleep, and had a lot of blood and dust on her," Bana writes in the book. "I couldn't move or breathe because I was so scared seeing my friend like that."
Bana drew around 360,000 followers after she joined Twitter in September 2016 aged seven, documenting life in her embattled city through tweets and pictures from her @AlabedBana handle, an account managed by her mother Fatemah.
Bana drew the attention of some famous Tweeters, including ‘Harry Potter’ author JK Rowling.
But her tweets also sparked controversy after some critics questioned the legitimacy of the account and accused Fatemah of using her daughter for propaganda.
During a ceasefire last December, Bana and her family were evacuated from eastern Aleppo to Turkey, where they were greeted by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at his palace. "I am sad because the children in Syria they don't have school, they aren't learning anything. They (stay) in their house and are dying every day," Bana said.