Childhood and adolescence are delicate stages in an individual’s psychological and social development. Going through difficult circumstances during these two periods may leave scars and cracks that may accompany him throughout his life. Psychological disorder in children usually appears in the form of psychological and physical symptoms. Children may also suffer from depression, anxiety, fear, anger and sleep problems. Childhood in Syria has painful stories and a dark chapter in human history. They are not just numbers, but tragedies without limits. As for the children who have lived through wars, they suffer from behavioral disorders, which are an inevitable result of feelings of frustration, despair, rebellion and violence that may be generated in children’s selves as a result of the pain of loss and oppression they have been exposed to, and the reflection of violations on their thoughts, feelings and behavior. In the same context, wars and armed conflicts may make the world of the child more complex, as they stand, from his perspective, behind the deprivation of his basic rights such as education, shelter, removing him from his natural environment and depriving him of a sense of safety, which necessarily means that wars may push him to a state of collapse. As a result of a state of terror that dominates his memory.
Between 2012 and 2013, I worked on documenting the suffering of Syrian children in refugee camps abroad, through an integrated project that embodied the tragedy of these children’s deprivation of the simplest means of livelihood, education, culture, health, family relations and safety. The camera was groaning in my hands like a human being swaying between the bitterness of alienation, the loss of the homeland, and the extraordinary life that was imposed on millions of children, who are at young ages who can only find a way out of the dilapidated tent against the cold of winter and the heat and cruelty of summer.
