(2/11) “This is a photo of me right before the war came. Maybe...

(2/11) “This is a photo of me right before the war came. Maybe my parents knew the war was coming, but they didn’t tell me. I wouldn’t have understood. I didn’t even know the meaning of war. Bombs started falling all around us. We lived very near one of Saddam’s castles. My mother told us: ‘It will be very loud, but nothing bad will happen to us. We will all be here together.’ Many houses in our neighborhood were destroyed, but I’d close my ears and sing songs whenever the bombs came close. In the cartoon shows, the good always wins, so I thought that we were good and nothing would happen to us. Then one day I heard a big sound and I saw that my best friend Miriam’s house had been destroyed. We walked to school together every day. I went to see if she was OK and I saw Miriam on the ground. She didn’t have any legs and she was screaming and I can still hear that sound now. They pulled me away but I saw everything. I don’t think it was good for a child to see this.”

(Gaziantep, Turkey)