Children have been active in the Syrian uprisings from the start. Up to 72 have been killed by security forces Since the first days of the Syrian uprising, nearly six months ago, human right organisations have been reporting the deaths of children shot by security forces, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus. Meanwhile, social networks are broadcasting almost daily photos and video footage of children, some with head wounds. They were wounded because they chanted in anti-regime demonstrations. There are dozens of video footage of bodies of children from Deraa, Homs, Latakia and other Syrian areas showing severe signs of torture, pulled-out nails, gorged eyes and severed limbs. Syrian state media does not hesitate to describe these young victims who were shot with live ammunition as "terrorist infiltrators" or the victims of armed militias, despite denials by eyewitnesses. A few days ago, the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) of the Syrian revolution said that the number of children killed in Syria has reached 72, noting that they were killed by the bullets of security forces or due to torture since mid-March. The LCC published the full names of the children and the dates of their death to remove any doubt about the authenticity of this figure. Meanwhile, a report by Amnesty International stated that no less than 10 children were killed due to torture over the past five months while under arrest in Syrian prisons. Their ages range between 13 and 18 years old. The organisation, which has referred to "crimes against humanity", said it has enough evidence to believe that torture and abuse caused these deaths and made an immediate demand to the United Nations Security Council to ask the International Criminal Court to start investigations against the Syrian government. The tales of killed and tortured children are painful and many. Most infamous is the story of 13-year-old Hamza Al-Khatib who has become a symbol of the Syrian revolution because of the fury over the intense and horrifying amount of torture he endured at the hands of the intelligence agencies, which arrested him in the southern city of Deraa before he was killed. His hand and penis were severed and holes were drilled into his body before being shot dead. The official media denied that the boy was tortured asserting that he was killed by armed outlaw militias. On the first day of Eid in a small town near Deraa 12-year-old Moussa Al-Wadi was shot in the head rendering him braindead. Nearly one month ago in Al-Maydan district in Damascus 25 members of security forces and death squads chased 15-year-old Ramy into a mosque; soon afterwards protesters in a nearby street heard a single shot. His mother is still awaiting his return. Mohamed Al-Torn, a nine-year-old orphan from a very poor family in Hamah, was shot in the head three times after a protest; two bullets were removed and the third will be taken out in another surgery. Although he cheated death, he will be paralysed for the rest of his life. Ola Jabalawi, a three-year-old toddler, was killed by a tank shell in the coastal city of Latakia as she looked out the window. In early August, activists uploaded to the Internet video footage of a woman screaming over the body of a young girl called Layal Askar from the town of Al-Harak in Deraa. The four-year-old died of a heart attack out of terror from the shelling which blanketed her town that day. The mother was wailing over losing her daughter and screamed at the Syrian regime: "The people of Syria will clench their freedom despite you," and bemoaned the silence of world countries and citizens about the massacres in Syria. "Fear God, fear God," she repeated. "We are victims." The residents of Hamah recount painful stories of infants who died in hospitals after Syrian authorities cut off power there, and refused to supply them with fuel for generators. Activists said that more than 20 infants died in their incubators because of the power outage at Al-Hurani Hospital and National Hospital in town. They include Mohamed Sabeh and Mohamed Kahhal, and others whose parents had not given them names yet. Syrian activists dedicated dozens of Facebook pages to child victims, such as ones entitled, "We are all the martyr Hamza Al-Khatib", "Syria's Child Martyrs", "For the Children of Syria", and "Those who drink the blood of Syrian children". Dozens of demonstrations expressed anger over the killing of these children. The children of the southern city of Deraa were the spark for the Syrian uprising six months ago. The arrest of 14 children below the age of 13, and their torture because of anti-regime graffiti they wrote on the school wall, was the direct reason why the uprising began against security forces and intelligence agencies. This mushroomed into a revolution against the entire regime. These angry revolutionary children in Syria have since their birth suffered oppression, fear and denial. During recent months, their fathers, brothers and friends were killed in front of their eyes. They were dragged to prisons, abused and tortured. They aged before their time and have no other choice but to follow the lead of their peers in Deraa. Preventing them from participating in the uprising or keeping them at home is almost impossible.
