On Thursday 31 December 2020, Ghaith Hussein al-Alou, a six-year-old boy, was killed near his school in Sarmin, Idlib. He was searching for firewood with his sister and cousin after school when he found the unexploded cluster bomb, which eventually exploded in his own hands. The UXO was probably caused from a cluster munition attack dropped on a school last year, on 1 January 2020, when 12 people were killed.
The tragic news was reported by Syria Relief, which operates in 306 schools in Syria for the benefit of over 100,000 children. Its Chief Executive, Othman Moqbel, rightly declared: “A six-year-old has such a vast imagination, but he could not have possibly imagined that this device was dropped with the intent of killing him and children like him”.
Incidents like this one are incredibly common in war areas such as Syria. In order to avoid such episodes, Syria Relief has committed to spreading more UXO awareness training in schools where they operate and for the communities where they work in. “Unfortunately, the reality in Syria is that six-years-olds desperately need to be trained on how to avoid being blown up”, sadly concluded Moqbel.
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Author: Laura De Pascale; Editor: Barbara Caltabiano
