Dubai: Seven-year-old Syrian girl Bana Al Abed, who came to international attention with her tweets giving a tragic account of the war in Aleppo, has made a new friend — US actress Lindsay Lohan.
Bana Al Abed shared a short video of herself and the Mean Girls star.
They were in Ankara where they met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Lohan, who has been in the country for the past few days, says in the video that the pair are “sending lots of love and life and blessings” to refugees and people in Syria.
“We want to send to all of the people in Syria and Aleppo suffering and to all the refugees we are here supporting you and you can hang on and be strong just like Bana has,” Lohan says.
Rumours have been circulating that the actress may have converted to Islam, after she was spotted in Turkey wearing a hijab.
The actress also appears to have deleted all of her posts on Twitter and Instagram, changing her bio on the latter to read “alaikum salam”, which means “peace be upon you” in Arabic.
Last week Al Abed penned an open letter to US President Donald Trump.
“I am part of the Syrian children who suffered from the Syrian war,” Al Abed wrote, according to a transcript of the letter her mother sent to the BBC.
She told Trump that her school in Aleppo was destroyed by the bombing and some of her friends had died.
“Right now in Turkey, I can go out and enjoy. I can go to school although I didn’t yet. That is why peace is important for everyone including you.
“However, millions of Syrian children are not like me right now and suffering in different parts of Syria,” she wrote.
“You must do something for the children of Syria because they are like your children and deserve peace like you.”
At least 15,000 children are among the more than 300,000 people who have been killed in Syria’s six-year war between President Bashar Al Assad’s regime and rebel forces.
Through her tragic descriptions of life in besieged Aleppo on her @AlabedBana Twitter account, Bana became a symbol of the tragedy unfolding in Syria, although the regime had slammed her and her mother’s nearly daily tweets as propaganda.
Turkey, which backs the Syrian rebels, is hosting some 2.7 million refugees from the conflict.
Trump’s spokesperson Sean Spicer said on Monday that the new US President was open to conducting joint operations with Russia to combat Daesh, who control significant territory in northern Syria.
