Syrian dad teaches daughter, 3, to laugh when bombs fall

Gut-wrenching footage shows a Syrian little girl burst into giggles as bombs fall around her house after her dad taught her to adapt to the sounds of war.

Abdullah Mohammed, 32, and his daughter Salwa, 3, have fled their Saraqib home to stay in Sarmada in Idlib, one of the last rebel bastions in the country’s north-west.

The region is under attack by the Syrian army – with the help of Russian and Iranian bombers – with the situation leaving hundreds dead and 900,000 people leaving the area to find safety.

But Abdullah has created a game to try and distract his little one from recognising the horrific reality around her and ‘remove the fear from her heart’.

A video of the pair shows the dad asked Salwa: ‘Is this a jet or a bomb?’

The youngster replies: ‘A bomb. When it comes we will laugh.’

With the sound of an explosion, the little girl bursts into hysterical laughter.

Her father chuckles along with her, asking ‘does that make you laugh?’ as he looks at her adoringly.

Speaking to local reporters, Abdullah said: ‘She is a child who does not understand war. I decided to teach Salwa this game to prevent her psychological state from collapsing. So as to not be affected by diseases relating to fear.’

Salwa said: ‘The planes were striking all around us and we were watching.’

When asked what happened next, she told reporters: ‘Then, nothing happened. We saw it hitting. It was strong, strong, strong. I started laughing and crying.’

Abdullah, whose video got thousands of views on Twitter, told Al Jazeera that children in the neighbourhood used to play with bang snaps which made a loud noise when thrown on the ground.

When Salwa was scared of them during the Muslim festival of Eid, he showed her that it was ‘just a toy’ and used the same ‘pretext’ to convince his daughter that the bombing was ‘just a game’.

Around three million Syrian people are currently in Idlib with a limited number of safe spaces left to flee airstrikes.

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The UN has called for the Al-Assad regime to open humanitarian corridors to allow them to escape.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week it is ‘only a matter of time’ before the country launches an operation to stop the Syrian army assault.

He added that he is determined to transform the border area into a safe place ‘at any cost’.