Syrian father-kid, who played game to overcome fear of bombing, now safe

As Russian-backed Syrian state forces continued their siege of the Idlib province, the last rebel bastion in Syria, a little girl and her father came up with a game to cope with the sound of the shelling.

In their video, which had gone viral since, Abdullah al-Mohamed is seen asking his three-year-old daughter Salwa to guess whether the sound in the background is that of a bomb blast and or a jet. She guesses it correctly and the two laugh ecstatically when they hear the next round of shelling.

The game was devised by Abdullah to help his daughter overcome the fear of shelling, after the family was forced to flee their home as the advancing troops neared his hometown of Saraqeb two months ago. He fled with his wife and daughter further north to the town of Sarmada, where they stayed in an abandoned house offered to him by a friend.

Now, a friend of the family has confirmed that Salwa is now safe. “They are safe now. Salwa will grow up without hearing bombs,” Mehmet Algan tweeted, sharing a photo of Salwa and her father in a car.

Algan had earlier described Abdullah as a family friend when sharing the story. Reports suggest they have managed to reach Turkey safely.

“Salwa had been hearing bombs all her life,” AP quoted Abdullah as saying. “As a baby there was no fear, but that changed after her first year. One day, they were at home in Saraqeb during Eid al-Fitr, the three-day Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Children outside were celebrating with fire crackers, and a big one exploded nearby.

“She was frightened, but I took her out and showed her that children were playing and laughing ... she was convinced,” he recalled. That was how he got the idea to connect the sound of bombs with laughter and kids playing, and to film himself laughing with her every time warplanes hit.

He said now every time they hear the jets or outgoing artillery shells, Salwa turns to him and waits for his reaction. He pulls out his cellphone for a selfie video and they wait for it and then they burst into laughter.

He said the war has wiped out the hopes and dreams of his generation and those of their children.

“The most I hope for is to stay alive, along with my daughter and everyone else, he said. We forgot about the bigger hopes, they don't exist anymore.”

Abdullah gets emotional talking about it. He says he realises the bombs they are laughing about could be ending someone's life at that same moment.

“Maybe it hit a tent or a child, and this is not funny of course. This is very sad. But I'm laughing so that my daughter doesn't get affected by this. And if the shell were to fall on us, better that we die laughing than to die scared.”

The renewed offensive by Bashar Al-Assad and Russian and Iran-backed forces in Idlib has led to a humanitarian crisis, with nearly one million being displaced, according to UN estimates. Many have tried to escape to neighbouring Turkey, but the borders are closed. Turkey already hosts 3.5 million Syrian refugees who entered over the course of the civil war.

According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Syria, there have been 299 confirmed civilian deaths in Idlib since January 1. Over 80 per cent of these were attributed to Syrian government forces, according to OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville.

(With AP/PTI inputs)