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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Alan Weston

Toddler responds to being told she can't see her grandparents with uplifting message

A proud Liverpool mum shared this adorable video of her two-year-old daughter appealing for world peace and no more war.

Delilah, the daughter of British-Kurdish parents, amazed everyone with her strong views at such a tender age.

She can be heard saying: "Everybody be happy... stop the war... I love Kurdistan... I love England."

The toddler wanted to visit her grandparents in Iraqi Kurdistan but her family decided against it because of the dangerous situation on the Turkish border.

Mum Rose Standish said: "Delilah is not fully aware there's a war going on in the region.

"She has been over there once before to visit all her Kurdish relatives, and she wanted to go again to see her nan and grandad. She also has a great-grandmother who will be 103 this year. But we had to explain to her it's not safe to go there at the moment.

"She started asking me more questions and I thought I needed to video this. Everyone who's seen it is astounded by the level of speech for a two-year-old.

"No-one wants war and fighting and it's a shame that people don't share that point of view."

Rose, 29, who grew up in Aigburth , met her Kurdish-born husband Omid Goharzi 12 years ago on a staff night out. She was working at a nursery and he was a waiter at a city centre Greek restaurant.

Romance blossomed and they had a traditional village wedding in his native land in 2015.

She said: "Omid came over here for a better life, to learn English and to study. He fell in love with the city and people of Liverpool - and with me, of course!"

Omid, who is now a British citizen, is head chef at an Ormskirk restaurant, while Rose is working part-time as a receptionist before returning to her main job as a student mentor for those with neurological problems and disabilities at Liverpool Hope University .

Delilah's grandparents live in Duhok, northern Iraq, which is part of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The area is still under intermittent attack from Al Qaeda and ISIS (Kurds are some of the strongest fighters against ISIS in the region). Rising tensions in the region mean the security situation has deteriorated in the last year.

There is no independent state of Kurdistan - it refers to areas in which the Kurdish people form a prominent part of the population, and includes parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

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