President Erdoğan welcomes Aleppo girl @AlabedBana and her family at the Presidential Complex in Ankarahttps://t.co/txdmuiiKzj pic.twitter.com/VfzlM4i2ug
— DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) December 21, 2016
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has hosted the seven-year-old Syrian girl Bana Alabed and her family on Wednesday at the Presidential Palace in Ankara. Alabed became the voice of children and adults trapped in Syria's Aleppo, where constant airstrikes and shelling by forces loyal to Bashar Assad claimed lives and left thousands on the brink of death.
The young girl, her mother Fatemah, father Ghassan and her siblings accompanied President Erdoğan and First Lady Emine Erdoğan in a photo shoot at the Presidential Palace. Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also attended the meeting between the Alabed family and the president.
Reporting on a conversation that took place at the meeting, the state-run Anadolu Agency said Bana extended Erdoğan the "greetings of Aleppo children."
I was pleased to host @AlabedBana and her family at the Presidential Complex today. Turkey will always stand with the people of Syria. pic.twitter.com/VuPtmFl7Lr
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) December 21, 2016
"We love you very much. You got us out of Aleppo. We suffered there. They bombed our house. We were left without food. Thank you," Bana said to Erdoğan.
Bana told the president she had been scared to go out in Aleppo because of "bombs falling every day."
Erdoğan went on to gift toys to Bana and her siblings during the meeting.
Very happy to meet with Mr Erdogan. - Bana #Aleppo pic.twitter.com/kXqlGGnjgU
— Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) December 21, 2016
Through a Twitter account run by her mother, Alabed put a human face on the drama of thousands of civilians indiscriminately targeted by the Assad forces and Iran-backed militia in the five-year civil war in Syria, Turkey's southern neighbor. She frequently posted videos and pictures of her and her brother writing or reading in an attempt to distract themselves from airstrikes.
The girl was one of thousands of people evacuated from once rebel-held areas of Aleppo in recent days under a deal brokered by Turkey and Russia. She was evacuated on Monday (tweeting, "I escaped from East Aleppo") and resettled in Idlib. Turkish officials promised she would come to Turkey with her family but it was not clear when she had crossed over. Following her meeting in Ankara, the young girl tweeted, "Very happy to meet with Mr. Erdoğan."
Erdoğan retweeted it and tweeted that he was "pleased to host Bana Alabed and her family at the presidential complex," adding that Turkey would "always stand with the people of Syria."
Bana, who has 330,000 Twitter followers, had earlier appealed to Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu to help them and others in Aleppo, to which Minister Çavuşoğlu replied: "Keep your hope, my sister. Turkey hears your call. We work hard to end the nightmare you and many children in Syria are going through." Bana has also directed tweets seeking help from U.S. President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May.
With the fall of Aleppo, some 100,000 people were forced to flee their homes, fearing atrocities by Assad forces and Iran-backed militias who frequently opened fire on evacuees as they were heading out of the city during the evacuation process last week. Turkey is readying tent camps for refugees in Idlib, some seven kilometers (4.34 miles) from the Turkish border. The country, which already hosts nearly 3 million Syrians who fled the war, plans to accommodate up to 80,000 civilians inside Syrian borders.
Aleppo is among the Syrian cities where the ongoing conflict has taken its full toll as residents cannot even find a spot to bury their dead, while all the hospitals were destroyed in the conflict. Turkey is among the major donors for the welfare of the displaced Syrian population and it has repeatedly urged the international community to spend more to address the needs of millions of refugees in the country.
Although it hosts one of the largest Syrian refugee communities in the world and accommodates hundreds of thousands in tent camps it has established across the border, Turkey advocates the establishment of a safe zone within Syria for the displaced. Only injured Syrians are allowed into Turkey, where they are provided hospital treatment, but special cases like Bana are also welcomed.