The seven-year-old girl who has tweeted about the horrors of her life in war-torn Syria has written to Theresa May asking the UK to send “medicine, doctors, water and milk” to help save “dying children”.
Bana Alabed wrote the letter with her mother, Fatemah, in a desperate plea for help as a UN humanitarian agency today warned months of clashes in the county’s crowded northern battlefields have displaced 66,000 people.
To date, the UK Government has resisted a series of calls to sanction aid drops of food and medicine to ease the desperate plight of adults and children trapped in besieged areas of Syria.
Bana has left the world horrified with descriptions of the death and destruction which had ravaged the Syrian city of Aleppo. Bana and her family were evacuated from war-torn East Aleppo in December. Today, she tweeted:
The letter reads:
Dear Theresa May,
I’m writing this letter with the help of my mother. I am looking for help for the suffering of the people of Syria.
Can you send medicine, doctors, water and milk? Have you seen the young children who are weak and dying because of hunger? I have seen them.
They live if we give only food but no-one cares. I am very sad. Promise me you send them food and medicine now please. Don’t forget them.
Love to you, Dear Theresa May.
In November, a cross-party group of 120 MPs urged the Prime Minister to allow the RAF to fly food in to Aleppo.
Aid drops to Syria are problematic for the UK since the besieged areas are not in Isis-controlled areas where the British and allied air forces are flying.
To carry out the support they would have to enter areas patrolled by Syrian and Russian jets, risking the possibility of attacks on RAF aircraft.
But Labour MP Alison McGovern, who has led calls for British to be sent to Syria, argues there are a number of ways aid can be delivered, and says its important to “set the humanitarian objective” and task specialists to figure out the mechanics.
She told HuffPost UK:
“We should be proud of the UK’s role in humanitarian aid. But it cannot get to those who need it in Syria, and the UK now must lead the way in using all practical methods to get necessary aid to Syrian civillians.
“The public have called for airdrops, along with Bana Alabed, and they must be listened to. If not airdrops, then by some other means. We cannot just abandon people.”
Bana has recently written a letter begging Donald Trump for help.
“You must do something for the children of Syria because they are like your children and deserve peace like you. I beg you, can you do something for the children of Syria? If you can, I will be your best friend,” she said to the US President.
At the end of last month, Bana also wrote a letter to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which she posted on Twitter. She told them: “Please stop the bombing and go to jail now for killing my friends.”