Two days after losing his legs in the bombing of a Syrian village, a 10-year-old boy received a special visitor Saturday at his hospital bedside.
Bana Alabed, the 7-year-old girl whose Twitter updates during last year’s brutal siege of Aleppo drew global attention, tweeted a video of herself meeting Abdel Basit Al-Satouf at a hospital in Turkey and taking the boy gifts.
“Yes I am very happy, I’m meeting (Abdel Basit) the Syrian boy who lost both legs to bombing,” she said.
In the video, Bana hugs Abdel Basit as best she can, speaks to him and rubs his elbow. “My friends,” she says, as she looks directly at the camera, “please help the children of Syria. We will go to school. We will go to play. The war will not stop us. We strong.”
The boy looks sad as he lays his hands on sheets that cover the stumps where his legs used to be. He looks over at the gifts, then to his caregivers but remains mostly quiet as Bana speaks with him.
Both children now find themselves in Turkey, displaced from their homes by Syria’s almost 6-year-long civil war.
Bana has lived in Turkey since she and her family fled the besieged eastern portion of Aleppo in December.
Abdel Basit was moved Friday by aid workers to the hospital in Hatay province after his condition improved, said Mustafa Ozbek, a spokesman for the Humanitarian Relief Foundation.
