As ISIS raises its menacing black flags to the East of Kobane, a Syrian city on the northern border with Turkey where Kurds are battling ISIS and hordes of civilians are evacuating, a mime puts on a show for Syrian refugee children in a scene straight out of Life is Beautiful. The mime, like Robert Benigni as Guido with his son Joshua in a Nazi concentration camp, makes light of a war-torn zone and the ultra-violent killers practically right outside the door by making a few practical jokes.
Reporters on the ground, including Jenan Moussa, have tweeted about ISIS’s “booby trapped cars” which exploded in Kobane, street fights, constant shelling and explosions, and the atmosphere of pure terror as night falls in Syria. But just outside the city, children watch and play along with a mime’s hand gestures, enraptured. In a second video, the mime plays with a puppet of a small child, and a member of his audience takes the puppet’s hand.
The videos were posted by a Turkish Facebook user, Kazim Kizil, who has been watching and posting about the border area for several days. Kizil’s videos give a rare touching, lively insight into a land seized by blood, war, and terror.
