This video is so powerful and truly shocking. But what was even more shocking is realizing that what’s shown in the video is something thousands of children are experiencing right now.
This video was filmed by Save the Children as a powerful reminder that the violence of war is not an abstract thing. It’s real and happening today to millions of families a lot like our own.
Filmed in 2016, not much has changed in the years since. If anything, children in countries like Afghanistan, Yemen and many others face starvation and equally dangerous living conditions.
In January of 2021, the UN urged countries to repatriate 27,000 children stranded in a massive camp in northeastern Syria. The children were from 60 countries. Many were sons and daughters of Islamic State extremists who have lost their parents and who are “stranded or abandoned to their fate.” UNICEF estimated there are at least 4.7 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria.
The situation in 2022 has only be exacerbated by the West’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, COVID 19, climate change and the war in Ukraine. World Vision Canada estimates that before the Ukraine / Russia conflict there was a record 345 million acutely hungry people headed towards starvation, with 50 million in 45 countries now on the edge of famine.
UNICEF says the numbers are even higher with the number of people affected by hunger globally to as many as 828 million in 2021.
Share this with your friends and family. It’s important to be reminded that “Just because it isn’t happening here, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”
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