Syria’s Children

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ALAN TAYLOR
Four and a half years of violent conflict have destroyed entire regions of Syria. Neighborhoods have been smashed by shelling and government barrel bombs, and towns have been seized by rebels and ISIS militants, then retaken by government troops, killing hundreds of thousands and injuring even more. The United Nations now estimates that more than 4 million Syrians have become refugees, forced to flee to neighboring countries or Europe. Caught in the middle of all this horror are the children of Syria, relying on parents who have lost control of their own lives and are now being forced to make difficult choices in desperate circumstances. Though many families remain in Syria’s war zones, thousands of others are taking dangerous measures to escape, evading militias, government forces, border guards, predatory traffickers, and more, as they struggle to reach safety far from home.

A wounded Syrian girl stands in a makeshift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of Syria’s capital of Damascus, following shelling and air raids by Syrian government forces on August 22, 2015. At least 20 civilians were killed, and another 200 wounded or trapped in Douma, a monitoring group said, just six days after regime airstrikes killed more than 100 people and sparked international condemnation of one of the bloodiest government attacks in Syria's war.

Syrian migrants cross under a fence as they enter Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, August 27, 2015. Hungary made plans to reinforce its southern border with helicopters, mounted police, and dogs, and was also considering using the army as record numbers of migrants, many of them Syrian refugees, passed through coils of razor-wire into Europe.

A Syrian youth runs past blood stains and debris following airstrikes by government forces on the rebel-held town of Douma on August 20, 2015.

A Syrian refugee tends to her daughter while cooking inside her tent at an informal tented settlement near the Syrian border on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan, on August 26, 2015.

Children pose on their bicycles in front of a destroyed building in the center of the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, Syria. on June 20, 2015. Kurdish fighters with the YPG took full control of Kobane and strategic city of Tal Abyad, dealing a major blow to the Islamic State group’s ability to wage war in Syria.
Mopping up operations were started to make the town safe for the return of residents from Turkey, after more than a year of ISIS militants holding control of the town.

A Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighter walks with a girl in Tel Abyad town, Raqqa governorate, June 16, 2015.

Syrian children walk on rubble after their building partially collapsed following a reported airstrike by government forces on a rebel-held area of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on April 19, 2015.

Girls who survived what activists said was a ground-to-ground missile attack by forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad hold hands in Aleppo’s Bab al-Hadeed district on April 7, 2015.

 

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Residents, with their belongings, return to their villages on a pickup truck after Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters said that they regained control of the area from ISIS fighters in the southern countryside of Ras al-Ain on May 13, 2015.

A Syrian child holds a drawing as he waits to disembark from Belgian Navy vessel Godetia in Italy’s Augusta port on June 10, 2015. Around 250 migrants from Syria arrived at the Sicilian harbor from a Damascus refugee camp.

Syrian refugees ask for water in Akcakale at the Turkish border near the Syrian town of Tal Abyad, on June 13, 2015. Turkey said it was taking measures to limit the flow of Syrian refugees onto its territory after an influx of thousands more due to fighting between Kurds and jihadists. Under an “open-door” policy, Turkey has taken in 1.8 million Syrian refugees since the conflict in Syria erupted in 2011.

A man lifts a young girl clear of the wire as Syrians fleeing the war pass through broken-down border fences to enter Turkish territory illegally, near the Turkish Akcakale border crossing in the southeastern Sanliurfa province, on June 14, 2015.

A Turkish soldier offers water to a Syrian refugee child after crossing into Turkey from Syria in Akcakale, southeastern Turkey, on June 14, 2015.

A boy carries a bag of new clothes ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan in Jobar, a suburb of Damascus, Syria, on July 15, 2015

A boy on a horse rushes away after hearing the sound of a Syrian fighter jet flying over Idlib city, Syria, on July 18, 2015.

Syrians evacuate an injured boy from rubble following a reported airstrike on the rebel-held town of Douma, northeast of Damascus, on June 16, 2015. Nearly every day, Syria’s air force drops barrel bombs—containers packed with crude explosives and shrapnel—on areas wrested from government control by rebels.

 

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A boy attempts to rescue a bird from under the rubble of a site hit by what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the old city of Aleppo, Syria, on July 12, 2015.

A man carrying his niece reacts after he lost his sister, the child’s mother, at a makeshift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, Syria, following reported air raids by Syrian government forces on August 24, 2015.

Syrian refugees arrive on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean sea from Turkey on an inflatable boat, on August 23, 2015.

Syrian children arrive at the Akcakale crossing gate between Turkey and Syria on June 16, 2015.

Syrian refugee Kutana al-Hamadi, 24, tends to her 7-month-old son Almunzir, covered with a mosquito net, at their tent in an informal tented settlement near the Syrian border on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan, on July 21, 2015. Almunzir is suffering from malnutrition, according to his mother. “My son is too weak; my body doesn’t produce milk (and) ... we can’t afford buying milk,” says Kutana al-Hamadi. “We survived the barrel bombs in Syria but I’m afraid we won’t survive the lack of health and food.”

A Syrian refugee child drinks tea while standing outside her family’s tent at an informal tented settlement near the Syrian border on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan, on August 26, 2015.

Syrian refugee children laugh as they sit on the side of a road that leads to the Akcakale border gate as they wait to return to their home in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad on June 18, 2015.

A young migrant coming from Syria sleeps on a train heading north from Nis, Serbia, to Belgrade on July 18, 2015. Illegal immigrants cross Serbia on their way to other European countries as it has land access to four members of the 28-nation bloc—Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.

 

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A migrant carries his daughter on his shoulders as they walk along a road in the town of Presevo, Serbia, on August 24, 2015. Long lines of migrants, many of them refugees from Syria, snaked through southern Serbia by foot before jumping on trains and buses north to Hungary for the last leg of an increasingly desperate journey to western Europe.

Syrian girl Salam Rashid, 14, who lost both of her legs below the knee in 2012 in a tank shell attack, poses for a picture at the MSF Hospital for Specialized Reconstructive Surgery in Amman, Jordan, on August 11, 2015. The international charity Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) will officially inaugurate its new reconstructive surgery hospital for war victims, which it says is unique in the region, in Amman next month.

Migrants from Syria and Afghanistan arrive on an overcrowded raft from the Turkish coast to the Greek island of Lesbos on July 27, 2015.

Mazen, a migrant from Syria, throws his daughter Bissan, 3, in the air while standing on the beach outside the police station on May 29, 2015, in Kos, Greece.

Seven year-old Ariana, a Kurdish-Syrian migrant, rests before crossing into Macedonia along with another 45 Syrians near the Greek border village of Idomeni, Kilkis prefecture, on May 14, 2015.

A migrant from Syria carries her child as she walks through a field in the village of Miratovac near the town of Presevo, Serbia, on August 24, 2015.

Four-year old Lilas, a migrant from Syria, and her father pose for a photo in front of their refugee home after receiving articles for daily use prepared by donors at a distribution center in Muelheim an der Ruhr, Germany, on August 20, 2015.

Migrants from Syria sleep at a park in Belgrade, Serbia, on August 27, 2015. Over 10,000 migrants, including many women with babies and small children, have crossed into Serbia over the past few days and headed toward Hungary and the EU Schengen Area, a zone with no internal border checks between member countries.

Syria's Children - The Atlantic

 

[I.R.A]

Sad.