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"Save the Children." All the little children!
By mickielynn on 2014-05-19 08:36:54
[caption ide attachment_ 5875" re ere width="600"]
Four Guardian puppets with
Ann Altman Poster, photo by Marcia Hopple. Guardian of Earth, Architect of Peace, Sustainer of all life & Nurturer of
Children, Guardian of Water. Puppets created by Mabel Leon and part of a Grannies vigil at the Tulip Fest,
5/10/14[/caption]
“Who really cares? Who is willing to try? -- To save a world that seems destined to die. When I look at the
world - it fills me with sorrow. Little children today (You gotta hear me now) really gonna suffer tomorrow...
So live, live for life, but let live everybody. Live life for the children. All the children... All the little children.”
Marvin Gaye, "Save the Children' Heart-breaking moment baby elephant refuses to leave his dead mother's side
[caption id="attachment 3877" align="aligncenter” ae
: mn aks
“ ) 72855 Young orphaned elephant
rescued and taken to an elephant orphanage in n Kenya, photo by Barcroft[/caption] It's very heartening to read about how
great efforts are made to save orphaned elephants in a nursery for those under 3 years and then a sanctuary for older elephant
children being acclimated to returning to life in the wild. I love animals and especially those like elephants who are
intelligent, social and have their own ways of communicating and caring for each other. Like people they increasingly fall
prey to human predation (poachers) and to the ravages of war and habitat destruction. But what about orphaned and refugee
children who suffer from the violence of war and displacement or to the increasing emphasis on profits versus care for our
most vulnerable members of society? We could talk about many areas of the world where children suffer from lack of care
and malnutrition and separation from their families but I thought that I'd choose three examples where civil war and neglect
are creating desperate situations for young children and their families. First there is the ongoing civil war in Syria where
several outside nations, including ours are adding fuel to the violence in the form of weapons and support for various
factions who are fighting a proxy war as well as an actual war on the ground. For more on this please see 3 other articles
that I've written previously.
After more than 3 years of fighting millions of people are now displaced and many of them are
refugees in neighboring countries and in camps on the Syrian borders.
Since we are almost all familiar with the situation in Syria we may ask ourselves why in addition to normal human
compassion and the desire to end such suffering might we be motivated to help the victims of this vicious civil war. Here's
the link to to stop fanning the flames and start working to end the conflict.
[caption id="attachment_5880" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
r «’ Syrian crisis, photo by Ahmad
align="aligncenter" width="450"]
—_" 5
Syrian refugee boy in refugee camp in Jordan,
Reuters, Muhammad Hamed, photo[/caption]
Unaccompanied or separated children are a common sight at the border crossing between Syria and Iraq.
Families who are desperate to escape Syria but who are unable to leave together often send their children out of
the country any way they can. In many instances unaccompanied children who make it to Iraq seek refuge with
family members who fled before them only to find that they are on their own when the family members cannot
take care of them. “Children are our future but they the ones those who suffer the most in refugee camps,” says
Salih, as he walks the camp’s muddy paths that separate rows of tents and concrete shelters that can house as
many as 15 people.
[caption id="attachment_5884" align="aligncenter" width="460"]
cf Bangui rubble in CAR, photo Siegfried Modola,
Reuters[/caption] Then there is the genocidal religious war that is raging in the Central African Republic where whole
families of Muslims are targeted by the Christian anti-balaka just as previously whole families of Christians were targeted
by the Muslim Seleka forces. This has been going on since December of 2012.
A United Nations-backed report revealed last year that 33.3 million people were displaced because of violence
in their countries. The conflict in Syria figures significantly in that number, but so too does the Central African
Republic. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, a humanitarian organization based in Norway, says
about 935,000 people in the country were forced to flee because of sectarian attacks — violence between
Christian and Muslim communities. That, the organization calculates, is a seven-fold increase from 2012.
[caption id="attachment_5883" align="aligncenter" width="460"]
a ay ii anti balaka checkpoint, Central African Republic,
photo Sia Kambou, AFP/Getty images|[/caption] Another report by Amnesty International further describes this situation in
the Central African Republic. Also, Kadin Norder wrote a very thought provoking article about what we might do to stop
this killing. [caption id="attachment_ 5895" align="aligncenter" width="350"]
Djibouti ~ ae)
Ethiopia Somalia
he - HAC map of Yemen, MENA[/caption] The third example that I
wanted to share with you is one ¢ where we are supposedly allied with the nation of Yemen. Unfortunately, the way that we
have demonstrated this so far is by using military force and drone attacks against the people of one of the poorest countries
in the Arab world. A country where malnutrition is maiming and killing many thousands of children. Instead of helping
with health and nutrition we are further stressing the population of a nation where we are not at war by terrifying and
attacking civilians and sending missiles against wedding parties. [caption id="attachment_5885" align="aligncenter"
width="460"
Yemeni slum, photo, The Guardian[/caption]
Yemen, malnourished children in a
"Stability in Yemen is not possible if more than half of the population do not know where their next meal is
coming from, or cannot access safe water and sanitation. Such is the challenge confronting the country. Some
14.7 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, hundreds of thousands of them driven from their homes by
successive waves of violence over the past decade. Yemen’s malnutrition levels are the second-highest on the
planet: more than 4.5 million people are severely food insecure, and around half of Yemen’s children under five
are stunted.These figures are terrifying. Yet Yemen is a forgotten crisis."
