This photo was taken three years ago in the city of Maarat al-Numaan and today the same scenes of community destruction continue to play out across the country. © UNICEF/UNI150196/Diffident
More than ever before, the world needs to hear a collective public voice calling for an end to this outrage. Because this conflict and its consequences touch us all.
It touches those in Syria who have lost loved ones and livelihoods, who have been uprooted from their homes, or who live in desperation under siege. Today, some 13.5 million people inside Syria need humanitarian assistance. That is not simply a statistic. These are 13.5 million individual human beings whose lives and futures are in jeopardy.
It touches the families who, with few options for a better future, set out on perilous journeys to foreign lands in search of refuge. The war has seen 4.6 million people flee to neighbouring countries and beyond.
“It touches a generation of children and
young people who – deprived of education
and traumatized by the horrors they
have experienced – increasingly see
their future shaped only by violence.”
It touches those far beyond Syria who have seen its violence reach the streets, offices and restaurants closer to their homes.
And it touches all those around the world whose economic wellbeing is affected, in ways visible and invisible, by the conflict.