Syrian Refugee Children in Iraq
On this World Refugee Day, 2014 my thoughts turn to the many camps I have visited around the world during the past 30 years.
Among my first were Palestinian camps in the West Bank during the 1980s. In the 1990s, I visited Sudanese refugees in Kenya and Uganda, and Karen and Karenni refugees along the Thai/Burmese border. In 2001, the Afghanistan War began, along with several visits with precious Afghan children in Pakistan.
More recently, I've made several trips to Syrian refugees residing in tents and apartments in Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan. More than 10 percent of Syrians have now fled their country.
I've wept with them, and have endured many sleepless nights after hearing their tragic stories and witnessing their trauma and pain.
I've prayed for peace, but their suffering and numbers continue to grow.
Their faces appear different because of race and ethnicity, but the needs of the refugees are always the same: food, shelter, fresh water, healthcare, and education--necessities of life that many of us take for granted each day.
The United Nations has done a remarkable job helping to meet the needs, and so have humanitarian relief organizations like Operation Blessing, CRS, Medecins Sans Frontieres, and many others.
But much, much more needs to be done--especially for Syrian refugee children lacking teachers and schooling in their camps.
And this month another crisis-- fighting in Iraq has forced hundreds of thousands there to flee. The number of Iraqi refugees has doubled to more than 1 million.
The world refugee total now exceeds 51 million. That's more than the number of refugees following World War II.
The numbers overwhelm. Relief agencies and tiny host nations are nearing the brink. How much more can they handle?
Perhaps we need another massive world response like the Marshall Plan, the $13 billion post WWII European recovery program.
A program like that may prove difficult. Many Americans suffer from donor fatigue, so it becomes easier these days to breath out a heavy sigh over the astonishing numbers, and then click abruptly to another web page.
But we have a responsibility to respond.
Let's remember the faces of the precious Syrian refugee children in Iraq (shown above), and others we may see today as we browse the web. Many of us may decide to do nothing because the horrors, atrocities, and suffering are just too much for our conscience to bear.
Please pray, and then do what you can to help them. The sleepless nights are worth it, believe me. They need us.