Syria: Father sells pens while holding his daughter on shoulder

Activist Gissur was flooded with requests to help the man and so Gissur, based in Norway, announced he was going to try to find him.

The pictures showed Abdul, a single father of two, holding up pens on a roadside in Lebanon’s capital, his 4-year-old daughter Reem asleep on his shoulder, according to Simonarson’s funding page.

Gissur said: “I am humbled and overwhelmed by the outpouring of support”. There are more than 4 million Syrian refugees in all.

After seeing how much money was raised to help his family within 24 hours, Kader told Buzzfeed he cried and thanked God.

At the time of writing 1,721 people have donated a total of $50,612 (£32,881) – far beyond the initial $5,000 target.

“We urgently need more safe and legal routes, including increased resettlement programmes, for people fleeing conflicts in countries like Syria”.

Simonarson says that he’s now working with UNICEF, the U.N.’s children’s agency, to figure out the best way to turn over the funds raised for Abdul and his family.

Once he had found them, he set up an Indiegogo crowdfunding project to help them.

Simonarson explained that Kader was located by Carol Malouf, who runs the organization Lebanese for Refugees, and said she is helping provide “a secure way to get this man the money we raise here”. Others said they hoped this story would raise awareness of the conditions refugees are living in. Since then, he’s been staying in the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

“He just kept saying praise Allah for what you are doing”.

But how easy is that without someone like Mr Attar, for people on social media to connect to?

“I think that this campaign proves that humanity is not lost just yet”, wrote Simonarson on Twitter Thursday.