A young girl whose dad taught her to just laugh at the sound of bombs has managed to reach safety in Turkey.
The country’s state-run Anadolu Agency said 3-year-old Salwa and her parents crossed into Turkey, and according to Guardian newspaper, the family had already found a new home in Antakya city.
A viral video shows Salwa and her father Abdullah Mohammed laughing as explosions can be heard in the background.
Internet users praised the father for protecting his child from the trauma but the clip also served as a reminder of the horrors faced by many other families in Syria.
In the video, Mohammed asked Salwa: “Is that a plane or a bomb?” She then replied: “A shell, and when it falls, we will laugh!”
Through a relentless bombing campaign on Idlib this Syrian father has been teaching his daughter to laugh when she hears explosions. pic.twitter.com/wRojclnuKO
— Amnesty International (@amnesty) February 21, 2020
The loving dad said he used his daughter’s memory of children setting off fireworks during Eid-al-Fitr to turn the trauma into a game.
“Now, my daughter will be able to go to school. I hope that the conflict in Syria can soon end and that I can return,” he said to Anadolu.
Bethan McKernan of The Guardian shared that she saw the little girl prancing around her new home wearing her adorable pink princess dress.
“I am happy to report that 3-year-old Salwa and her parents have made it safely out of Idlib to Turkey,” she tweeted. “The family made headlines for a game where dad Abdullah got Salwa to laugh at falling bombs to protect her from trauma. For the first time ever, she can laugh at normal things.”
UN estimated that around one million people have been displaced and many more are still trapped in Idlib, northwestern Syria.
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Replaced!