UNICEF have just sent me an email to remind me that the conflict in Syria will now been tragically going on for precisely a decade as of Monday.

This is what they have sent me:

Powerful stuff. Ten years. TEN YEARS! Close your eyes and imagine yourself ten years ago and then think of your current situation and all the good times you have had in between.

Now imagine how that decade would have been different if you feared for your life every single day. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Anybody that reads this blog will know that I really loved my visit to Syria in May 2009. Can it be true that the simply wonderful people that I met in Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Palmyra and other cities are still suffering?

If you can spare a few dollars, euros or pounds please donate to UNICEF so that they can alleviate the suffering of the children a little. Here are some pictures of some beautiful kids that I met 12 years ago.

Please donate now. Click DONATE to go directly to the UNICEF site.

For an extraordinary insight into what life during the conflict is like, everybody should watch the documentary film For Sama. This is what the film website says about the film:

FOR SAMA is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her.

Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

You can watch the film’s trailer HERE. You can buy the dvd from usual stockists or rent/buy from Amazon Prime.

I would also thoroughly recommend reading a book called the Beekeeper of Aleppo for another astonishing insight into what the Syrian refugees have to endure to save their lives. Read my review HERE.

And Aleppo in happier times in May 2009…….