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A Syrian teenager who documented the siege of Aleppo on social media as a seven-year-old child has been awarded an international peace prize for her advocacy on behalf of children affected by armed conflict.
Bana al-Abed, now 16, received the International Children's Peace Prize on Wednesday at Stockholm City Hall, where she was recognized for her efforts to reunite families, reopen schools and provide support to young people in conflict zones across Syria, Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine. The award, presented by the Netherlands-based KidsRights Foundation, honors children who demonstrate exceptional commitment to advancing children's rights.
Al-Abed and her family were evacuated to Türkiye in 2016 amid the Syrian government's assault on Aleppo. Since then, she has attended international conferences, visited refugee camps in Türkiye and Jordan, authored two books, and gained recognition from world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron.
In her acceptance speech, al-Abed directly addressed the architects of conflicts that have displaced and killed children worldwide. She challenged former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sudanese warlords to account for the young lives destroyed by their actions.
"How many children have had their lives and dreams stolen by wars, by a regime that kills its citizens, in the name of survival by a criminal who markets war as a political agenda, by an empire that justifies aggression in the name of security, and by those who have turned violence into a deliberate policy?" she said, adding: "Your words will not go unaccounted for. We will not remain silent in the face of those who made blood a means of rule or power."
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In an interview before the ceremony, al-Abed identified education as the most critical need for children living through armed conflict. She explained that schooling provides more than knowledge—it offers hope and the opportunity for development in otherwise desperate circumstances.
War forces children to mature prematurely, she noted, robbing them of their childhood as they struggle to understand their dangerous surroundings. "When they're given an education, they're also given hope and opportunity to grow and develop," she said.
Al-Abed has not returned to Syria since her family fled, but she remains focused on helping rebuild the country's educational infrastructure. She described the dire conditions facing students who have returned to school, where children sit on cold floors in bare classrooms without whiteboards, books, desks or basic learning materials.
She is also working to locate and reunite 5,000 Syrian children who were forcibly separated from their families during the war and remain unaccounted for.
Marc Dullaert, founder and chairman of KidsRights, praised al-Abed's "courage, resilience and unwavering commitment to justice," noting that she had transformed the trauma of war into a platform for advocacy despite experiencing unimaginable hardships.
The International Children's Peace Prize has previously been awarded to prominent youth activists including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and Pakistani education advocate Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.
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