Erdoğan hosts family of girl whose tweets gained global attention, as mother says she hopes Bana can live normal life after fleeing

The mother of a seven-year-old girl whose tweets from inside besieged east Aleppo offered the world a glimpse of the suffering of its civilians has said she hopes her daughter will finally be able to live a normal life, as the family met with the Turkish president.

Bana Alabed was evacuated from the devastated Syrian city this week and on Wednesday images and video from her family’s meeting with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife, Emine, at the presidential complex were published by the Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu.

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Their arrival in Turkey caps an arduous journey for a family that survived twice the destruction of their home and helped document the destruction of east Aleppo, whose residents endured a bombardment, the absence of essential supplies and the destruction of all their hospitals before being evacuated in a deal brokered by Ankara and Moscow.

On Wednesday Bana’s mother, Fatemah, who runs the Twitter account, said she was elated that her children were safe at last.

In a phone interview with the Guardian, she said: “I want Bana’s life to go back to normal, [for her] to go to school, go to the park, live a normal life. I want to thank everyone, they gave so much to Bana, and now Bana will live a normal life and have dreams. We won’t stop calling for the saving of all the children of Syria from the bombs.”

Fatemah said a delegation from the foreign ministry in Turkey met her family at the border shortly after they were evacuated from Aleppo on Monday.

She described a gruelling evacuation that left her children ill. They waited for seven hours in the harsh winter cold before they got on buses that would evacuate them, only to be held for 19 hours at a government checkpoint with no food or water while negotiations continued to allow civilians out.

“We were very scared,” she said. “When we got to the countryside my son asked me: ‘Mum, are we in heaven?’ He thought he was in heaven because there were biscuits.”



Fatemah said the family’s last few days in east Aleppo during the government offensive had been filled with terror, particularly because her home appeared to have been deliberately targeted in an effort to silence her and her daughter.

“The army had taken almost all of Aleppo and we were left in a small area that they could have taken in half an hour,” she said. She said she had received some private assurances from government officials that she would not be harmed if she surrendered, but said she did not trust those claims.

During the siege of Aleppo, Fatemah had tweeted to implore the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, to evacuate her and her daughter from the city. On Wednesday she said Erdoğan had been “generous and humble” with her family.

“I was pleased to host @AlabedBana and her family at the presidential complex today. Turkey will always stand with the people of Syria,” Erdoğan tweeted on Wednesday. Photos from the meeting showed the Turkish president embracing Bana and her brother.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) 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

In a video, Bana can be heard telling Erdoğan: “Thank you for supporting the children of Aleppo and help us to get out from war. I love you.”

It is understood that Bana and her family will be offered asylum in Turkey.

Her videos captured worldwide attention including from JK Rowling, who sent copies of her Harry Potter novels when she learned of Bana’s interest in reading.

Fatemah said she was excited that her daughter would be able to read again, saying they would get back to reading the books Rowling sent to her. At their home, she said, they would read one or two pages a day, but were unable to do so while they were on the run when their home was destroyed.

Fears had risen over their safety in recent weeks as Syrian government forces bore down on their neighbourhood and her account was briefly shut down, as well as when she published images and video of the destruction of her home.

Bana and Fatemah appeared in a video interview posted online on Monday, in which the mother said she was glad to have reached safety but regretted being forced out of her home city. “Me and Bana want to tell all the world how much kids and all people in east Aleppo, how much they are suffering from bombs and everything – because there is no life there,” Fatemah said.

“So we created our Twitter to tell all the world what is happening there. We are happy because our voice reached all the world. We are free. I am sad because I leave my country. I left my soul there. I want to take our freedom there, not be like a refugee in other countries.”

Bana has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers and has become a symbol of the tragedy unfolding in Syria. She was interviewed in October by the Guardian shortly after the account was set up. Via Skype, with planes flying overhead, Fatemah issued a call for Aleppo’s children to be saved.

“We had a lot of dreams for ourselves and our children,” she said. “We want to protect them. We lived part of our lives, but our children haven’t.”

She added: “They think those besieged are terrorists, and as you can see we are just normal people. We are Syrians, we are the people of Aleppo.”