PHOTO MOMENT: Khalsa Aid – a selfie against war

with Vipul Bhundia (contributor)

(c) Khalsa Aid

“ALL SIDES IN ALL WARS NEED TO STOP KILLING/ TARGETING CHILDREN.

God bless the children in war zones …”

Today’s photo was shared on Facebook by my cousin. A devout Sikh man silently protests against the killing of children in wars across the globe. His placard, written in thick black marker pen on a piece of paper, reads: “Please STOP killing children in wars created by grown men!! – @Khalsa_Aid “

Khalsa Aid is an international non-profit organisation and humanitarian charity founded in 1999 according to the Sikh principle of ‘seva‘ or selfless service onto others. Drawing inspiration from one of the original ten holy gurus of Sikhism, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, Khalsa Aid follows his teaching that Sikhs should “recognise the entire human race as one”. The charity first saw action during the Kosovo war of 1999, when a call was answered to send volunteers to the stricken ethnic Albanian population there who were being persecuted by the Yugoslav army under then president Slobodan Milosevic. Two trucks and a van with aid donated by the Sikh community in the UK were driven all the way to Kosovo.

Since then, Khalsa Aid have helped the victims of wars and disasters in places as diverse as Syria, Haiti, Libya, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition to war and disaster, the charity’s volunteers, who often offer their assistance with immediate short notice, also take part in anti-drug programmes, art therapy and helping on water purifications projects.

Currently the conflicts in Syria and in Palestine has seen children suffer inexorably. In Syria, where numerous rebel factions are fighting a protracted war against the government, it has been estimated by the Oxford Research Group think tank that 11,000 young Syrians have perished in the three years since hostilities began. The situation has seen thousands of families flee into neighbouring countries where children are crammed into makeshift refugee camps with little food or educational facilities. Many have been traumatised by the horrors they witnessed, seeing family members slaughtered in front of them or the relentless sounds of bombing and gunfire. The deliberate targeting and summary of Syrian children, especially young boys, has become so perverse in its frequency, that one BBC journalist described the targeted torturing and killing as “a war on childhood”.

Meanwhile the recent flare-up of tension between Israel and Palestine has already seen whole families wiped out by missiles, while the latest phase of the decades-long tension began when three Israeli seminary students were abducted by an unknown militant group and murdered. In a retaliatory attack, a Palestinian teenager was abducted and then set on fire alive. As Israel mounts operations against Hamas rocket launching sites with the Gaza Strip, their disproportionate approach has seen children in Gaza bear the brunt. A recent incident that saw widespread condemnation was the shelling of four boys from the same family who were playing a cops-and-robbers style game on a beach.While enjoying a moment of peace from the sounds of falling bombs, a warship positioned in the Mediterranean sea caught sight of them and began firing.  All four died, while in the aftermath the Israel military claimed that it thought the boys were militants launching an attack on them.

There are hundred of armed conflicts still going on, where children pay the ultimate price. Raped, murdered, abused, and even enlisted as soldiers themselves, war becomes a very horrible and soul-destroying place. For tens of thousands of children across the world, childhood isn’t fun and games. What should have beeen an idyllic time of happiness and smiles instead becomes one of tears and pain. No war ever begun because of a child, but it is they who suffer the most.

KHALSA AID

http://www.khalsaaid.org/

Office 7-8, 111 Whitby Road, Slough, Berkshire, SL1 3DR, United Kingdom.

Phone: +44 (0)1753 567457

E-mail: info@khalsaaid.org

IMAGE CREDIT:

Khalsa Aid, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Khalsa-Aid/163220440824

SOURCES:

Facebook, Facebook Inc. https://www.facebook.com/

“About” – Khalsa Aid, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Khalsa-Aid/163220440824?sk=info

“Khalsa Aid – How it started” – Khalsa Aid http://www.khalsaaid.org/whoarewe.html

“Syria conflict: Children ‘targeted by snipers'” – BBC News Middle East, BBC (24 November 2013) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25055956

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