Syrian War Hits Children the Hardest With No End In Sight

Thousands of children have died, been injured or displaced in the war – the vast majority of them remain nameless.

As the war in Syria rages on, millions of children have lost their childhood. (Photo: Reuters)

With just days to go before the start of the new school year, hundreds of thousands of Syrian parents are faced with the stark choice of whether to feed their children or send them to school, experts told Reuters.

Nearly 1 million Syrian refugee children are out of school in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, which host the vast majority of the nearly 5 million refugees created by Syria’s civil war. Many Syrian children are forced to work to help make ends meet, or are unable to pay for transport to school. 

No Place For Children

The heart breaking photograph of Omran Daqneesh, the little boy sitting alone in an ambulance with his face and body covered in blood and dirt after being pulled from a destroyed building has reminded the world, yet again, of the unimaginable horrors that Syrian children face every day, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said last week.

No child in Syria [is] safe while the conflict drags on.

Christophe Boulierac, Spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Omran Daqneesh, a little boy sitting alone in an ambulance after rescue. (Photo: Reuters)

It’s almost a year since the image of Aylan Kurdi shocked the world.

The photo of Aylan Kurdi that shocked the world. (Photo: Reuters)

Aylan Kurdi was a three-year-old Syrian boy of Kurdish ethnic background whose image made global headlines after he drowned on 2 September 2015 in the Mediterranean Sea.

No Hope For A Solution

As if the war in Syria did not have enough combatants, yet another country has entered the fray.

On August 24, the war escalated further as Turkey sent tanks, warplanes and special-operations soldiers over the border, driving Islamic State (ISIS) out of Jarablus, an important supply node for the jihadists.

(With inputs from Reuters)

Video Editor: Prashant Bhardwaj