12/10/2018 | 3m 44s | Video has closed captioning.
In this documentary, filmmaker Dunya Khalil brings attention to Syrian refugees, particularly children and youth who have become orphans. She learns about young people who have been purposely shot in the spine in order to paralyze them and prevent them from rebelling against the government.
Aired: 12/10/18
The crisis has been going on for about three years now.
A little over that.
The public needs to be informed.
And they need to be informed about the facts of what's going on.
♪ The numbers and the statistics are amazing, but I fear beyond that, I fear for the children of Syria.
A lot of them have become orphans.
They are surrounded by violence.
They are not going to school, they're getting no education, and they're left to fend for themselves with nobody there to look out for them.
DUNYA KHALIL: I'm Dunya Khalil, an Arab-American who was born to Egyptian natives.
I first became interested in the Syrian conflict because I knew some Syrians who would try to keep people informed by posting articles on Facebook.
This would often turn into an argument with different people because of their different opinions on who was to blame.
Although this kept me informed, I only fully understood the conflict when my sister Nashwa, a doctor of physical therapy, volunteered at a Syrian refugee camp based in Jordan.
After this mission, she came back to New York with heartbreaking stories that inspired me to keep people informed through both aid workers who work with Syrian refugees and Syrian refugees themselves.
This documentary is dedicated to celebrating Syrian refugee strength and raising awareness about their ongoing plight.
MAN (speaking Arabic): (gun firing, man moaning) RIFAI: A very common tactic is, they have been shooting young men in the spine with snipers.
They are purposely trying to paralyze these kids and prevent anyone from rebelling against the government, to crush the uprising.
MAN (speaking Arabic): RIFAI: You can't have peace in the Middle East without Syria.
A lot of the country is under the impression that this does, this is something that does not affect them.
That's simply not the case-- it's a humanitarian issue.
It affects all of humanity.
MAN (speaking Arabic): KHALIL: You don't have to be related to someone on the ground in Syria to feel compassion.
You don't have to be a mother who just lost her child to feel her pain.
You don't have to be somebody afflicted with a treatable disease, but has no medicine.
You just have to be human.
