“Tonight we have no house, it was bombed and I ended up in the rubble. I saw the dead and I almost died myself,” writes seven-year-old Bana Alabed. X in 2016. A photo shows Alabed, her hair and pink sweater with a teddy bear on it are covered in dust. The next day she posts a photo of her bombed house: “My beloved dolls did not survive the bombing. I am very sad but happy that I am still alive.”
At the age of seven, Syrian Alabed (16) became world famous for her tweets from besieged Aleppo. The two baby teeth she replaces, the books she reads – she receives Harry Potter books via an e-reader sent by the writer JK Rowling -, but also the fear she experiences when a bombing takes place nearby: her followers experience everything. She became the face of Syrian children in wartime. On Wednesday she won the International Children’s Peace Prize in the Swedish capital Stockholm.
The Children’s Peace Prize has been awarded annually since 2005 to children who fight for children’s rights around the world. “Her commitment to education, peace and children’s rights reminds us that even the youngest voices can create systemic change. Bana provides the moral leadership the world longs for,” said KidsRights President and Founder Marc Dullaert, which organized the awards ceremony.
Three perfect years
Alabed lived in freedom in Syria for three years. According to her mother, she was “born with a smile” in 2009, Alabed wrote in her book Dear Worldwhich she wrote together with her mother in 2017. “I had a lot of reasons to be happy when I was little,” she shares. She often went swimming with her “baba,” which was her “favorite thing to do.”
In 2012, the “safe, happy, peaceful childhood” turned into a “nightmare,” her mother wrote in the foreword. That year the siege of Aleppo began. The city was torn apart by fighting between the government of former President Assad and Syrian rebels. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, among others, supported the government.
‘My turn’
During the 2016 reconquest offensive on Aleppo by the Syrian army, bombing intensified, mainly in the east of the city, then in the hands of Syrian rebels. Alabed lived with her parents and two brothers Noor and Mohammed in the eastern Al-Bab district and experienced the bombings up close.
That same year, Alabed started the X account together with her mother. The reason was the death of her good friend Yasmine. Yasmine, she said, was “the strongest of all her friends” and often pretended to order world leaders to give her childhood back. When Yasmine died in an air raid, it was her “turn”, Alabed recently said a video from KidsRights.
The X account, where she alternately sent tweets with her mother Fatemah, now has more than 237,000 followers. She reported on the war from the eyes of a child. By means of The Washington Post she was called the “Anne Frank of the Syrian Civil War.”
Alabed started the hashtag #standwithaleppo, which was shared millions of times via X. French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned her in a speech at a UN conference in 2017. “We hear your voice. I stand with you in peace,” he then wrote in a message on X.
Propaganda?
Assad also responded to her X account in 2016. That’s what he would say The Washington Post told a Danish journalist that her account was a “media-fed lie” and “terrorist propaganda material.”
The error-free English X-messages made critics suspicious. But also: how did she get electricity? And how can a child send X messages from a city that is almost completely in ruins? Does she even exist? . Research collective Bellingcat concluded in December 2016 that Alabed does exist and that the account is probably run by her mother. She is an English teacher and studied journalism, among other things.
Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan
The family fled to Turkey at the end of 2016, where they have lived ever since. In recent years, Alabed has not only posted messages about Syrian children, but also about children in various war situations, including Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan. “I fight for the right of every child to live in peace,” she said in the video for KidsRights.
As the winner, Alabed received a scholarship for her education and a fund of 75,000 euros, of which 50,000 is intended for her own project. Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, among others, preceded her.
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