Lost Generation

Every week when I am brainstorming new ideas for this blog I google the headline "children in war torn countries." Every week new stories are submitted onto the various pages of Google, and every week the pictures of young victims get harder and harder to look at. Many media outlets have been covering Syria for months now.Many child protection agencies are begging for people to give in some way, to help these children who are being forced to flee from that country and gain the title refugee.

Just as war vets speak of the flashbacks and the sounds and smells that will continue to haunt them, the same goes for the child refugees who are displaced from the very areas that caused them such anguish.The plight of Syria and it's refugees is being called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.Twelve million people have been affected by this more than all of Hurricane Katrina,the Haiti earthquake, and the Indian Ocean tsunami combined.Half of those affected are children.

More than a third of Syrian families are no longer living in their homes and one out of every three water treatment plants in Syria have been destroyed.This has caused an increase in diseases such as polio and measles.The children are the ones most affected because since hospitals are being destroyed, there are limited opportunities for immunizations.The hospitals that are still standing are running out of baby milk which is not a good situation when you've had over 37,000 Syrian babies born as refugees.

As once being the envy of the region, now the Syrian education system has fallen down the drain.They used to have literacy rates of ninety percent but since the conflict 500,000 children have been forced out of school with a school attendance rate of thirty percent, a 67 percent drop since before 2011(unicef). Many of the children have lost three years of schooling and are looking to lose more.Compare that to a school in the United States, and you can see how it will become near to impossible for these children to ever catch up.Many times school is a type of solace where children can escape from their problems at home, yet these children do not have the opportunities to go as there is a waiting list.

The children are fearful of human contact and jump at any noise that might be considered loud.Children as young as three years old are able to recognize the sounds of missiles and guns.There have been stories of children having to move and bury dead bodies-many of them parents or relatives.They are distrustful and show aggression towards the other children.Issues such as self harm and bed wetting are used as coping methods and have been big issues within certain refugee camps.

I could sit here and list problem after problem of that plague the Syrian refugee children but I think you got the idea. This is one humanitarian issue that many people have rallied together to do their part and help in some way, but the issue is just getting worse and worse.You see stories on the news of children drowning at sea trying to escape in boats loaded with people. You hear of malnourishment and the lack of supplies because there's just to much to fix all at once.The Syrian refugee children are being called "the lost generation." Their childhood will haunt them for the rest of their lives because that is the consequence of war.The children are usually the ones most affected.