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Children should NOT be targeted in war. End of story.
Tonight I weeped as I watched an unbearably graphic video on CNN. I had just tucked my little guys in for the night, crept upstairs to drink a cup of coco, turned on the TV (thinking it was on a different channel) and there was a little girl screaming directly into the camera. I sunk onto the coffee table—frozen by the terror unfolding in front of me. A little girl is shouting for help, with only a photographer in her face and no one to protect her. I’m not going to provide a link to this video. It literally showed children screaming and somehow the person taking the picture was apparently terrifying them more—a baby in the arms of his big sister was shaking uncontrollably and screaming hysterically while his sister tried desperately to find a place to run.
I instantly thought of my good friend in London, a Syrian doctor with two young children. Her son was my oldest son’s best friend in Kindergarten. I adore her two children. She has family near the Lebanese border and I recall how brave she was when she flew back with supplies (diapers, medicines, etc.) to aid those who had been affected by an Israeli bombing in the region six years ago. How does she sleep at night knowing that her country’s leader is literally targeting children? How will she explain this terror to her kids, now 10 and 6 years old?
A quick search online reveals how many horrors Syrian children have witnessed in the past year. Bashar al-Assad’s regime has killed thousands of children in the past year: bombing them in playgrounds, killing them indiscriminately, and purposely. They have bombed hospitals and targeted neighborhoods with civilians. In May, more than 32 children, many infants, were “mutilated” and killed in another attack. The last estimate by UNICEF, (which was in February), reported 500 Syrian children had been killed. Well, we know the number is clearly three or four times that amount 10 months later.
And now, al-Assad may use chemical bombs or gas in a desperate attempt to not lose control—or take everyone with him if he does. He could wipe out thousands of innocent children and families in one swoop.
Even without the threat of chemical gas…how will the hundreds of thousands of refugees living in camps at border towns—at least a third of which are children—survive the winter? How will the families whose homes are now bombed survive the winter? It’s getting bitterly cold and aid can’t be supplied.
Again, my heart aches for these children. It’s time for the world to say ENOUGH.
Related articles
- Israel asked Jordan for approval to bomb Syrian chemical weapon sites (theatlantic.com)
- Syrian Children Out in the Cold (sys-con.com)
- ‘Cluster bomb’ kills 10 children in Syria (itv.com)
