“But Why Dad, Why Do the Children Have to Get Hurt & Die, Why?”
Faizel Patel – 31-05-2017
With the start of Child Protection Week in South Africa, I was watching videos of Aylan Kurdi, the little Syrian toddler whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey & Omran Daqneesh in the ambulance after a bombing in Aleppo when my 3-year-old son Muhammad Rayyan decided to sit on my lap.
Watching the videos intently, Muhammad Rayyan couldn’t understand how Aylan could die and why Omran was so badly hurt and had so much blood on his face.
“But why dad, why, why?” asked a tenacious Muhammad Rayyan.
The anguish and sadness on Muhammad Rayyan’s face brought tears to my and my wife’s eyes as we sat and watched him intently looking at the computer screen.
Muhammad Rayyan wanted me to play the videos over and over again hoping that at some point he would understand what happened to Aylan and Omran and why did it happened to them because they were just as young as he is.
He just sat on my lap, one hand on the table and the other hand around my neck and watching the videos with an expression of fear and sadness on his face.
Indeed, Muhammad Rayyan is right. Aylan and Omran are about his age, so why do kids have to go through this pain, suffering and death? Why, Why, why?
Even though I understand the circumstances surrounding the death of Aylan and injuries of Omran, my heart aches and wish they were not real and did not happen at all.
Kids should be playing together, smiling, being mischievous and be part of a happy family and safe environment away from the wars of man and not lying on a beach or sitting at the back of an ambulance.
So while we may have all that we desire, let us lift our hands and pray for the innocent little children that have become victims of a senseless war.
The anguish, plain and suffering these innocent children really breaks your heart and tears you to shreds.
Muhammad Rayyan forced me to carry him to bed, hugging me so tight, not letting go, with me trying to fathom what was going through his little heart and mind.
Once tucked in, he literally begged me to teach him a prayer, reciting after me, invoking and begging God to look after the “poor babas” and to never let them get hurt or die, eventually crying himself to sleep.
