The little girl who shames world over Aleppo bloodbath
Haunting online diary of 7-year-old trapped in Syrian hell
SHE is only seven and should be at school.
But in a series of heartbreaking tweets about her family’s battle for survival, a little girl is updating the world about the siege of Aleppo.
As bombs fall around her, Bana Alabed sends almost daily bulletins on life in the devastated Syrian city, with the help of her mother Fatemah, a teacher.
One photo shows the terrified child covering her ears against the noise of explosions, with the tweet: ‘I am very afraid I will die tonight … bombs will kill me now.’
Since a US-brokered ceasefire failed last month, air strikes by the Syrian government and its Russian allies have pounded opposition-held areas, where at least 250,000 civilians are stuck without food or clean water.
Bana, her mother, father Ghassan and brothers Mohammed, five, and Noor, three, are trapped in the east of Aleppo.
The girl’s Twitter profile says: ‘I & my mom want to tell about the bombing here. Thank you.’ Her first tweet, on September 24, said simply: ‘I need peace.’
One video shows Bana on the balcony of their apartment, wincing at explosions. ‘I don’t want to hear that,’ she says, covering her ears.
In her tweets, followed by almost 46,000 users, Bana begs Bashir Al Assad’s
‘Very afraid I will die tonight’
regime to ‘stop killing us’, adding: ‘I need peace to become a teacher. This war is killing my dream.’ Another, alongside a picture of her with a book, says: ‘Good afternoon from Aleppo. I’m reading to forget the war.’ Her school was destroyed by bombs around a year ago.
The family are accustomed to air strikes after four years since rebel fighters took control of the area – but the bombings have never been so indiscriminate.
Bana said: ‘I’m afraid of war planes and shells, they kill us … Children are dying here, in their schools and homes. Even in hospitals there aren’t any medicines.’
The only time she goes out is to get bread with her father, a 34-year- old former lawyer who works for the local council. Bana said a bomb had destroyed her garden and another had hit her grandmother’s house.
Mrs Alabed, 26, said the children sleep in their parents’ bedroom so they will not die alone should the house be hit.
Electricity and internet access are scarce so they use solar panels and a poor 3G connection to tweet when they can. ‘We just want to show others how we live and how the bombs rain on us every day so the world may act,’ Mrs Alabed said.
The family have survived on pasta and rice they stored before the governmentimposed siege in August, but supplies will soon run out. They have not had fruit or vegetables in more than four months.
On Monday the US suspended negotiations with Russia aimed at reviving the ceasefire. A State Department spokesman accused Russia and Syria of stepping up attacks on civilian areas.