BEIRUT — Mohammed works at a Beirut supermarket
where he waits on clients and carries their groceries home for a small
tip that the 14-year-old saves to send later to his family in a village
in northeastern Syria.
He is among thousands of Syrian children who have dropped out of school
and fled two years of conflict that have claimed the lives of more
than 70,000 people, including thousands of children.
He is also one of countless young Syrians now frequently seen wandering
the streets of Beirut, pumping gas at stations and sometimes begging
for money.
Aid groups warn that some two million children in Syria are facing,
among other things, malnutrition, disease, early marriage and severe
trauma as a result of the civil war.
To mark the second anniversary of the uprising against President Bashar
Assad, the Britain-based charity Save the Children released a report
Wednesday entitled "Childhood Under Fire." It says the conflict has
left many children traumatized, unable to go to schools and struggling
to find enough to eat.
"I have to say I have been shocked and horrified by the stories that
I've heard from the children here in Lebanon who fled from Syria,"
Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, told The
Associated Press at the group's offices in Beirut.
"You never want to hear a child talk about watching their friend killed
or their father tortured in front of them or their brother shot
through the leg," added Forsyth, who spent several days in Lebanon last
week meeting children among the estimated 320,000 Syrian refugees who
have fled to the neighboring country.
Syria's children will need decades to heal from the trauma, he warned.
Similarly, a report issued by UNICEF Tuesday said unrelenting violence,
massive population displacement, and damage to infrastructure and
essential services caused by the Syrian conflict risk leaving an entire
generation of children scarred for life.
"As millions of children inside Syria and across the region witness
their past and their futures disappear amidst the rubble and
destruction of this prolonged conflict, the risk of them becoming a
lost generation grows every day," said UNICEF Executive Director
Anthony Lake.
The report, marking the 2-year anniversary of the crisis, said that in
areas where the fighting is most intense, few people have access to
fresh water. Also, one in five schools have been destroyed, damaged, or
is being used to shelter displaced families.
In Aleppo, the center of months of fighting, only 6 percent of children are attending school, the report said.
At the same time, children are suffering the trauma of seeing family
members and friends killed, while being terrified by the sounds and
scenes of conflict.
While the reports did not give a number of children killed or wounded
in the civil war, the Violations Documentation center in Syria, a key
activist group that keeps tracks of Syria's dead, wounded and missing
persons, says that some 5,500 children, including 3,800 boys and nearly
1,700 girls, have been killed in the past two years.
VDC also says 901 boys and 28 girls are in detention while about 100 children are missing.
Forsyth said the 5,500 figure "is very conservative. A lot of children have been killed and injured."
Children in Syria were targeted early on in the uprising, and right
groups routinely report on teenagers imprisoned and sometimes beaten
and tortured.
One of the most shocking cases involving children was that of Hamza
Al-Khatib, 13, who was from the southern village of Jiza in Daraa
province, where the uprising first broke out after security forces
arrested high school students who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a
wall.
Al-Khatib was arrested at an anti-government demonstration on April 29,
2011 and not seen again until his mutilated body was delivered to his
family weeks later. Al-Khatib became a symbol of the revolt, driving
thousands of protesters into the streets.
Countless other amateur videos have been posted by activists showing
children who were killed by shooting, shelling or air raids. Some were
only weeks old.
Save the Children, which provides humanitarian relief in Syria and
neighboring countries, called on all groups taking part in the conflict
to allow unfettered, safe access to populations in need and to "ensure
that everything is done to bring the fighting to an end."
In the report, it said that young boys are being used by armed groups
as porters and human shields at the front lines. It added that some
girls are being married off early to protect them from a
widely-perceived threat of sexual violence. Both sides of the conflict
in Syria have accused each other of using children to protect
themselves.
"The majority of people who are raped in war are usually children and
that probably is the case in Syria," said Forsyth. He added that they
don't have exact numbers but "I have interviewed children who were
sexually harassed."
The report says that combined with the breakdown of society in parts of
the country, and more than 3 million people internally displaced, the
conflict has led to "the collapse of childhood for millions of
youngsters."
Mohammed, the Beirut supermarket employee, stopped going to school
after it closed because of the fighting. As the eldest of three
siblings, he was sent by his family to Beirut to stay with his maternal
uncle, hoping he could find work to help sustain the family.
"I make about 15,000 pounds ($10) a day," said the portly boy from the
northeastern village of Shadadeh in Hassakeh province, which witnessed
heavy clashes last month forcing thousands of its residents to flee.
"If I don't send money to my family, they won't be able to buy
anything," he said. Mohammed gave only his first name, fearing for his
security.
At a Beirut gas station, Suleiman, a teenager wearing a T-shirt and a blue baseball cap, spends his day washing cars.
"The fighting and shelling were terrifying in my city," said the boy
from the oil-rich eastern city of Deir el-Zour near the border with
Iraq — an area that sees almost daily fighting between troops and
rebels.
Forsyth said even though children are by nature resilient, the trauma
they have been through will have a long-term impact on their lives.
"For millions of Syrian children, the innocence of childhood has been
replaced by the cruel realities of trying to survive this vicious war." —
AP
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