Observer Report
Sarmada
In Syria’s Idlib, there’s no escaping the war, so Abdullah al-Mohammed says the only way he found to reassure his daughter Salwa was to turn the shelling into a game. A video in which she laughs every time an explosion goes off was widely shared on social media in recent days as a heartening but grim reminder of Idlib residents’ daily lives. “Is it a plane or is it a mortar?”, he asks, as a whizzing sound grows in the background. “A mortar,” the three-year-old answers. “When it comes, we will laugh.” In another video, Salwa is standing on her father’s lap in their living room and her hearty laugh is set off by the sinister thunder of a bomb dropped by a warplane.
