Bearing witness:The children of Syria, the new born of Syria, the babies of Syria, the toddlers of Syria, I present them to you

I have to continue bearing witness for the children of Syria, to continue addressing the conscience of the world and drawing attention to the little people of Syria. What Chance has a new born or a baby against the Scud missiles raining erratically on peaceful villages and towns crowded with children? About 37 per cent of the population in Syria are children under fourteen, which can make me safely surmise to a certain extent that 45% of the population are children. While intruding on the private sorrows of young children and registering their deaths, I am not trying to sadden you or beg you to shed tears. Only a crime on an epic scale is being committed in Syria and perpetrated under the very eyes of the world. I am not trying either to convince you to take sides because this is not fair  in view of the fact that most of you do not know what is happening  or are too distracted by daily concerns to care or pay attention. If the world we live in has evolved morally as it has evolved technologically, it would have by now developed a fairer global system to ensure freedom and justice to all the people of the world regardless of geopolitical greed and the drive for supremacy; a country as old as history or older would have been saved by now.

I have drawn my mother, now I can sleep

I am being held prisoner, held captive by the suffering of the people of Syria but especially by that of the children. You might say I am being selfish and over-assuming  but believe me I need to be liberated, I desperately need to sleep at night without being haunted by the terrible screams of children in pain. Because I cannot do much, my penance has been and is this bearing of witness.  I am a poet and an artist who has always courted joy and the passionate celebration of life in her work, therefore to live with death and suffering is not a choice of mine. Yet it is the very lyricism and intensity of hankering after beauty  which my art has lived by that compels me to choose to be with the children whose lives knew no beauty, no sunsets or sunrises, who will never run or dance. If the killing stops, if the unspeakable suffering ceases, I might find peace again and hold my brush to paint the light that turns the sea into a sea of diamonds.

Credits: the images below were all posted to Facebook by professional photographers, or by citizen journalists and photographers.

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The Children of Syria

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A family

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Grandma

Found the bear

Bound even in death

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If you are cold draw a heater

I am watering my plants

It might be safe here

I am here little brother

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We have rights too, we love freedom

Hanging by steel and concrete

 

©Alisar Iram

Please also see:

** Bearing witness: I present to you the children of Syria

Posted on February 27, 2013

**https://alisariram.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/in-march-of-the-year-2011-in-peaceful-green-daraa-the-writings-on-the-wall-of-a-group-of-children-sparked-a-revolution/

** Pictures from Syria: the children of Syria

Posted on February 7, 2013

****Bearing witness: I present to you the children of Syria****

Posted on February 27, 2013

** The Lost Children of Syria; children with no hope

Posted on December 9, 2012

 **Save the Children release images of Syria’s children on ‘death journeys’ trying to escape civil war

Posted on June 21, 2013

**Syria’s children hide underground in caves to escape the fighting

Posted on February 26, 2013

**Images from Revolutionary Syria: Children and others

Posted on February 13, 2013

**Bearing witness: the Bayda massacre, genocide or sectarian cleansing?

***Chemical attack?what chemical attack? Sorry it is alleged and cannot be verified

Posted on August 24, 2013

** **Starvation: I accuse you world, I accuse you Obama, I condemn you Putin: Look at the image of Syrian childhood turning into stone under the gaze of the Medusa of hunger***

Posted on October 18, 2013

** The war children of Syria: our reluctant heroes

Posted on July 11, 2014

** https://alisariram.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/where-are-the-lost-children-of-syria-why-is-the-cruel-world-not-looking-for-them-for-the-children-who-have-gone-missing/

ADAPTED July 2014

Children of Syria

Thank you papa Assad

 

Collecting rubbish

 

Syria’s war children

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures are chosen from Facebook and Google