Ten-year-old Khaled lives in a refugee camp in the countryside of Idlib, Syria. He has wide gray eyes and looks serious in front of the camera, but his friends and caregivers call him the \u201chead of mischief.\u201d
\nKhaled lost his father five years ago when Islamic State militants abducted him in Idlib. That was the last time Khaled saw his father.
\n\u201cKhaled\u2019s father got out from the house heading to Friday prayers, then disappeared. We searched everywhere for him. Later we learned that militants from ISIS had taken him, and he just disappeared,\u201d Khaled\u2019s mother, who did not want to be named, told VOA.
\nKhaled, his mother and 6-year-old twin brothers moved several times from one refugee camp to another as the Syrian government\u2019s warplanes kept striking camps in the area.They finally settled in the Uthman ibn Affan camp for orphans and refugees, where they are currently living.
\n\u201cOne day, Syrian government jets attacked our village. We survived,\u201d Khaled\u2019s mother said, recalling the horror that she and her children experienced.
\nKhaled is only one among thousands of children who have lost their parents to the war in Syria.
\nSyrian activist Omar Omar, who arranges entertainment for children living in refugee camps in Idlib\u2019s countryside, told VOA that the organization he works for is caring for more than 6,000 children in the area who have lost one or both parents.
\n\u201cSome orphans are living with family members, like grandparents, uncles and aunts. Some are separated from their entire families, and they are supported by humanitarian organizations,\u201d Omar said.
\nHis is just one organization caring for 6,000 children in one area. The total number of children who lost their parents could be in tens of thousands of children.<\/p>\n
Perpetual war<\/strong> Impact on education<\/strong> Exploitation concerns<\/strong> Ten-year-old Khaled lives in a refugee camp in the countryside of Idlib, Syria. He has wide gray eyes and looks serious in front of the camera, but his friends and caregivers call him the \u201chead of mischief.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe war in Syria broke out in 2011, and within a couple of years it had resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, according to estimates from opposition activist groups. But ISIS\u2019s emergence in 2013, after a split with what was then known as the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliated group, further increased the suffering of ordinary people in the country. ISIS engaged in clashes with rebels first in Idlib and later expanded to other areas of the country, including Raqqa in the east, which became the ISIS de facto capital.
\nSince then, civilian casualties have soared. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that as of March 2018, more than 510,000 had been killed in the war. A lot of those killed left behind children and families.
\nIn a 2017 study published by Save the Children, a global nonprofit organization working for children\u2019s well-being, about 77 percent of adults told researchers that they knew of children who had lost one or both parents in the Syrian civil war.
\nEighteen percent said they knew of children who were \u201cliving alone with no choice but to fend for themselves with little community or institutional support. Many have to work in farms or in shops, steal or beg on the streets, or join armed groups to get by,\u201d the report said. Some have had to undertake grownup responsibilities and become breadwinners for their families.
\nThe report did not have an actual figure for the total number of orphaned children in the country.<\/p>\n
\nAccording to Save the Children, more than 4,000 attacks have taken place on schools in Syria since the war broke out, which has seriously affected children\u2019s education. The organization warned that if measures were not taken, the interruption in education could have serious implications for Syria\u2019s postwar society.
\nThe impact of being deprived of education is worse on orphaned children, because they lack the parental guidance that is needed.
\nManar Qarra, general manager of the Selam Orphanage in Gaziantep, Turkey, told VOA that education is a key priority in rehabilitating orphans so that they can gain confidence and depend on themselves in the absence of one or both parents.
\nBut she says that\u2019s not enough.
\n\u201cWe also focus on developing children\u2019s skills and enabling the children to discover themselves and plan for their futures,\u201d Qarra said.
\nQarra added that children who have been out of school for years cannot simply go back to school, especially when there are psychological problems that could prevent them from succeeding in their studies. She said remedial instruction and therapy may be needed.
\nThe oldest girl in Qarra\u2019s orphanage is Shahira Qaddour, 21, who came to the orphanage five years ago, along with her five younger sisters, from Homs governorate in central Syria.
\nShahira and her sisters lost both of their parents.Syrian government forces killed her father. Her mother and a toddler sister were also killed in an airstrike that hit their house. Shahira and the remaining sisters miraculously survived the attack, and activists helped the girls come to Selam Orphanage.
\nAt the orphanage, Shahira loves taking pictures and aspires to work as a photographer one day. Selam Orphanage uses many of the pictures she takes on its social media pages and website.<\/p>\n
\nActivists like Qarra are concerned that children who lost their caregivers in Syria are at risk of being forced into labor, marriage or service in armed groups.
\n\u201cThe orphan who comes to our center is a war orphan. The child not only suffers from the loss of a parent but also homelessness, fear and deprivation,\u201d she said.
\nQarra added that traumatized mothers, who experienced abuse and sexual harassment in the past, should not be ignored by aid groups, because their emotional breakdowns and reactions could directly affect their children.
\nQarra said that children affected by the war in Syria carry hidden wounds that go beyond physical loss, and with no end in sight to the conflict, they cannot regain a sense of normalcy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"