Anas al-Basha, a Syrian social worker known as the Aleppo Clown, was killed during an airstrike in the rebel-held eastern district of the war-torn city on Tuesday.
Al-Basha, 24, the center director for the civil society group Space of Hope, worked as a clown to help bring comfort to children long caught in war there, according to the BBC News. He was in the Mashhad neighborhood of Aleppo when it was hit with an airstrike, said The Associated Press.
"He lived to make children laugh and happy in the darkest most dangerous place," Mahmoud al-Basha, who identified himself as Anas' brother, said in a Facebook post, per BBC.
"Anas who refused to leave Aleppo and decided to stay there to continue his work as a volunteer, to help the civilians and give gifts for the children in the streets to bring hope for them," al-Basha added.
Space of Hope, according to The Independent, supports 12 schools and four psycho-social support centers in eastern Aleppo where they provide counseling and financial support for more than 365 children.
Before the Syrian government closed off the city last summer, al-Bahsa's parents both left but they could not convince him to do the same.
"He would act out skits for the children to break the walls between them," said al-Basha's supervisor Samar Hijazi. "All of us in this field (of childcare) are exhausted, and we have to find strength to provide psychological support and continue with our work."
According to The Guardian, the Britain-based organization Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported that more than 300 people were missing from Aleppo. The organization said the men may have been taken to a nearby air base for screening and interrogation.
The Observatory has said more than 20,000 people have fled to Aleppo's government-held western neighborhoods, while another 30,000 have traveled to areas held by Kurdish forces.