IANS
BEIRUT, AUGUST 29
An online fundraiser has raised more than £75,000 for a refugee from Syria and his daughter after a sharing moving pictures of the man selling pens in the streets of Beirut.Gissur Simonarson, founder of Conflict News, posted the pictures on Tuesday and was flooded with requests to help the man, a Palestinian from the devastated Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria.
The touching pictures showed Abdul, a single father of two, holding up pens on a roadside on the southern outskirts of Damascus while holding his sleeping four-year-old daughter, Reem.
Abdul is from the Yarmouk Camp in Syria, which has been torn apart by fighting after the brutal Islamic State invaded and began reducing the city to rubble.
The pictures were taken in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, where more than a million refugees have fled to escape fighting in their cities.
Forced to leave their homes and lives behind, many do anything that they can to make enough money to feed their families and Abdul found himself trying to sell pens to survive.
Young refugee children sell flowers, packs of tissues or offer to shine shoes for a small sum.
Pictures of the devoted father, desperate to send his children to school, struck a chord with people all over the world and donations came flooding in.
The $5,000 (£3,250) was reached within hours but donations kept on coming via the page on crowdfunding site indiegogo.
The campaign collected $117,000 (£75,000) within 24 hours according to the page, and the current total stands at $80,000 (£51,000).
‘It’s nice to see people come together and make a difference in another person’s life,’ Simonarson wrote.
While the money was raised for Abdul, he says he wants to use it to help fellow Syrian’s facing the same struggle.
In a tweet, Mr Simonarson said: ‘Abdul has said that he wants to help other Syrian refugees with this money, as well as send his children to school. Can’t get more noble.’
It’s a huge sum in Lebanon, where many refugees live in absolute poverty, and will make a huge difference to Abdul and many other families.
However, all Abdul really wants is an end to the war that has torn his home country apart.
Carol Malouf, who works with refugees in Lebanon, wrote: ‘I asked Abdul about his dream. He said he wants to go back to Syria to the way things were.’
