We all were once a kid. Now as we step into adulthood, at least once in our life time we wish to go back to those free and careless days. Sleeping in the sofa and teleporting to bed, walking in the park with mom and dad, silly sibling fights, playing hide and seek with your friends, endless nostalgic memories of childhood can never be forgotten!
“I simply can’t build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death. I think peace and tranquility will return again”
– Anne Frank
As a kid I never raised this kind of statement because when I’m going to sleep every night I never had to bother about not having a clear tomorrow. Despite I heard that there is some war going on in Jaffna, there are bomb explosions happening on a daily basis. As a kid I never knew the depth of this. I never thought too much about it until the day I got the chance to school in Colombo. I remember my parents discussing every night whether they are going to send me there or not considering the country’s situation while the only thing I was worried about going to a school in Colombo was getting up early in the morning. Meh!
Time flew very fast and I was growing up. When I was in the 8th and 9th grades there were several bomb explosions in Colombo and in other areas of the country as well. I remember my mother coming to my school once a month to check school bags of the students and guard the school gate all day long. The situation in the Northern Province was much worse than this. They were the ones who had to go through the real hell of war. I still can’t imagine the pure dedication of the small kids and teenagers who had to study in that environment and had to live in bunkers in order to save their lives from attacks. This happened every single day till the war came to an end in 2009. I understood that war isn’t something that you can take easy. Though I wasn’t a victim of war what I witnessed will remain in my mind forever. I felt pity about the small children in the Northern areas who had to wake up to see dead bodies early in the morning, who couldn’t sleep at night because of the bomb explosions and attacks, and to be as bad as it can be who lost their family because of the war. I learnt the meaning of the above statement of Anne Frank. I feel pity about the kids who had to experience the war and who can’t reminisce about their childhood which was bound by violence.
I’m glad that the civil war of Sri Lanka came to an end but still if we consider the entire world, war is slowly killing us. As per the New Global Trends Report from UNHCR, over 30 million children are now displaced by war and conflicts. Children are affected from war in all the ways it affects the adults and in many more different ways. Do those pure souls deserve it?
Remember the videos of the Syrian war which went viral on the internet? That blue eyed girl who is so helpless and who doesn’t even know her name, yet smiles at the camera? The little Syrian girl whose whole body is shaking after a chlorine attack trying to fix an oxygen mask to her face by herself? The little boy covered in blood and dirt after an airstrike, who wiped his blood stained face without shedding a single tear drop? And the little boy who washed up on beach? It broke thousands of hearts but yet the war remains same.
Why?
Because those visuals had an effect just for a few days. Yes, we did see them, we did talk about them but eventually we forget them. We missed the crucial step; taking necessary actions to stop the war. We have failed as the human kind; we failed to make a better future for these innocent souls.
The effect of war on Children should come to attention. It should not be ignored. Imagine what will happen after these innocent souls grow up? Imagine the hard feelings going inside these little hearts. Who can assure that these heavy unbearable feelings won’t turn in to hatred in the future? War creates “Terrorists”, and sometime later we complain about it. World has to get together to stop this violence for the sake of these children. This isn’t the only impact of war on children. Long after the war has ended, these lives will never attain the potential they had before the impact of war. Death, injuries, disability, Illness, rape and prostitution, psychological suffering, moral and spiritual impacts, social and cultural losses and child soldiers are some other major impacts of war on children which can be listed.
“When elephants fight, it is grass that suffers”
In this case it’s the children who suffer. Let us not let them loose another year to blood shedding and suffering. Let’s make every day in the calendar a children’s day. Let’s put an end to war.
“Unless we teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence”
– Colman McCarthy-
By Akshila Anurangi
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