Harrowing video shows boy saving girl from sniper fire in
Syria
A young boy is being hailed a
Syrian superhero after he was caught on film appearing to dodge a swarm of bullets in order to save a little girl pinned down by a sniper.
Harrowing video footage posted to YouTube on Monday by the activist
Shaam News Network channel shows the boy, no older than 10, making a mad dash for the girl, who is cowering behind an old, burned-out truck in the middle of a street.
The rescue appears to take a turn for the worse as the youngster drops to the ground when it looks like he’s been blasted by incoming bullets. But apparently the boy was just playing possum and waiting for the perfect opportunity to make a run for it.
He rushes to the girl, grabs her by the hand and takes off back the way he came — ducking and dodging another shower of bullets. Amazingly, the two manage to make it out of the danger zone safely.
Though the footage has yet to be verified and its setting is unknown, many YouTube users praised the boy.
YouTube user
Saud Helal wrote: “A smart boy, strategies [acquired] by living the wars.”
“
Obviously he feigns deaths so the shooters will stop shooting,” another user writes.
The Shaam News Network is a television channel run by pro-rebel Syrian activists stationed in
Damascus, according to their website.
The video has been viewed more than 130,
000 times.
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Syria (Listeni/ˈsɪ.rɪə/ sih-ree-ə ;
Arabic:
سوريا or سورية,
Sūriyā or
Sūrīyah), officially the
Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in
Western Asia, bordering
Lebanon and the
Mediterranean Sea to the west,
Turkey to the north,
Iraq to the east,
Jordan to the south, and
Israel to the southwest. Its capital Damascus is among the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world.[7] A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, it is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including the majority
Arab population. Other ethnic groups include Aramean-Syriac Christians,
Armenians,
Assyrians,
Kurds,
Circassians,[8]
Mhallami,
Mandeans[9] and
Turks.
Religious groups include
Sunni, Christians, Alawite, Druze, Mandeanism and Yezidi.
Sunni Arabs make up the largest population group in Syria.
In
English, the name "Syria" was formerly synonymous with the Levant (known in Arabic as al-Sham) while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the
Eblan civilization of the
3rd millennium BC. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the
Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the
Mamluk Sultanate in
Egypt.
The modern Syrian state was established after
World War I as a
French mandate, and represented the largest
Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab Levant. It gained independence in
April 1946, as a parliamentary republic. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in the period 1949–
1971. Between 1958-61, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt, which was terminated by a military coup. Syria was under
Emergency Law from
1963 to
2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered to be non-democratic.[10]
Bashar al-Assad has been president since
2000 and was preceded by his father
Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from
1970 to 2000.[11]
Syria is a member of one international organization other than the
United Nations, the
Non-Aligned Movement; it is currently suspended from the
Arab League[12] and the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation,[13] and self-suspended from the
Union for the Mediterranean.[14] Since
March 2011, Syria has been embroiled in an uprising against Assad and the Ba'athist regime as part of the
Arab Spring, a crackdown which contributed to the
Syrian Civil War and Syria becoming among the least peaceful countries in the world.[15] The
Syrian Interim Government was formed by the opposition umbrella group, the
Syrian National Coalition, in
March 2012. Representatives of this government were subsequently invited to take up Syria's seat at the Arab League.[16]
- published: 12 Nov 2014
- views: 1122