Young lives taken by an adults’ war

Syrian children take part in activities at Save the Childrens Child Friendly Space near the Syrian border. Picture: Save the Children

The situation in Syria is worsening. Tragically it is children who are bearing the brunt of this dreadful crisis.

Many are being forced to endure unspeakable acts of violence – young children are tortured and killed, and others are dealing with the trauma of seeing their friends murdered in the streets where they live.

Although it has been more than two years since the conflict began, the stories that we’ve heard most recently are truly shocking.

Our teams on the ground have given harrowing accounts, including that of a 12-year-old boy being left to bleed to death with insect-infested shrapnel wounds when his companions were forced to abandon him and run for their lives.

Refugees told them of a baby, who had been separated from her mother, dying of thirst in the heat, and a 12-year-old boy whose throat was cut by personnel manning a checkpoint.

We’ve also received reports of children targeted by sniper fire, or driven to lick moisture from grass and leaves in a desperate attempt to stave off thirst in the searing heat.

Children inside Syria are especially vulnerable to the worst atrocities, whilst those who manage to escape often lack access to schools and safe places to play and are frequently living in cramped, overcrowded conditions.

The camps in Jordan and Lebanon, on the Syrian borders, are staffed by Save the Children’s emergency teams who are bringing desperately needed aid to children.

The children are scarred by their ordeal and need to feel safe and secure, but even in the darkest of times they still want to learn and play.

A Save the Children worker interviewed 16-year-old Motasem. He fled Syria for a refugee camp in Lebanon. He said: “One day… my village wanted to scare off the soldiers who were approaching, so they used aubergines and pretended to bite the top off, as if they were grenades.

“The soldiers ran away. It was a funny moment. It was scary at the time, but now, here, it makes me laugh to remember it.”

It is heartening to know that Motasem is somehow managing to cope with this terrifying experience.

His story is almost farcical – images of the soldiers running from aubergine grenades – but Motasem has stories that are harder to tell: he has seen only three of his 13 friends survive this conflict.

Seven-year-old Mahmoud came from Syria to neighbouring Lebanon a few months ago. He told us that he came under fire by a sniper close to where he lived.

“We played and rode our bikes around in the street, my friend and I.

“Suddenly there was a bang and he fell off his bike. Someone had shot at us and hit the bike of my friend. There was a sniper hiding on the top roof of the house across the street from where we lived.

“After my friend fell off the bike, he was shot again.”

Mahmoud’s friend survived the attack but his injuries have left him paralysed from the waist down.

Save the Children are providing direct support to children like Motasem and Mahmoud, who have fled the conflict in Syria.

The camps where the refugee families live offer little protection from the elements in homes made of plastic sheeting and scavenged materials, such as burlap sacks and old billboard banners. One of Save the Children’s most crucial tasks is to offer humanitarian assistance to those families in this position.

Our immediate priority is providing the most basic needs for refugees – clothes, shoes, blankets, baby kits, hygiene kits and food.

We are also working tirelessly to register Syrian children in local schools.

Some of the children have already been out of school for an entire school year, so we’re distributing school equipment, school uniforms and scholarships to pay school fees.

But it is equally important to give children safe places where they can play, learn and relax.

One of the local staff at a camp in Lebanon told us that when their safe play area opened just a few months before, the children drew guns, blood, war and fires.

Now it is different. Now the kids draw their homes in Syria, blue skies, hearts, animals and flowers.

People might think that the situation is hopeless; that there is nothing we can do that will make a difference to the lives of children who have lost almost everything to this conflict.

But we can’t turn our back and ignore the tragedy that is unfolding.

This is an adults’ war that is destroying childhoods, but we must believe that amidst such a bloody and tragic conflict, change is possible and that Syria’s children will be free to be children once more.

• Neil Mathers is Save the Children’s Head of Scotland

www.savethechildren.org.uk/syria

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