| Description: | In March 2011, inspired by the Arab Spring, Syrians took to the streets, demanding reform of the oppressive Assad regime. Repression of these nonviolent protests by Syrian Armed Forces & Allied militia was immediate and brutal. Soon the conflict escalated into civil war between government and rebel forces, with both sides aided by a proliferation of armed groups and powerful external players. By the end of 2018, more than 400,000 had died because of the conflict, 6.2 million were internally displaced and an estimated 11.7 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance.
Reliefweb "UNHCR - Syria Factsheet (January 2019)"
Thousands of miles away in England, arpillerista Linda Adams was shocked at the images of Syrian children caught in the chaos of war. Digging deeper she “watched newsreel film and read first hand reports for days” and with needle and thread she stepped into their world. In this piece, as the barrel bombing continues relentlessly overhead we descend into an underground school, where teachers, at great risk to their own safety, persist in educating their students.
Absent children and adults, killed during the war “are represented …as shadows in the spaces where they would have been.” Children's drawings cover the walls, a common sight in schools worldwide. Linda reminds us that these images “came from children's drawings [in] Aleppo [and] show things children shouldn’t have to see.”
Linda is mindful of the fact that that “new news [items] … push stories like this away from the front pages”. She had hoped that her work would bring “some attention and understanding” to the Syrian conflict, where people continue to suffer bombardment, displacement and gross human rights’ violations.
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