Thursday 31 May 2012

Dead eyes in Houla

Early on Sunday morning I came across a picture from the scenes of the massacre at Houla in Syria.  It was of two boys, aged between eight and ten.  They were lying on a mat together, heads pointing in opposite directions.  Their t-shirts were blood-stained.  They were long, tanned and skinny young kids who would have been full of life only 24 hours earlier.  However their eyes had no light in them.  They stared blankly into space.  It was a scene that shook me to the core.


You see I have a young son.  He jumps, bounces, and skips around.  He laughs and even when he is asleep his eyes are peaceful and content.



I do not have a copy of the picture of the boys from Houla.  I'm not going to search for it.  I don't need to.  It's etched into my memory.  I wonder what was the last thing the boys saw before they were murdered.  There are a lot of things wrong with this world that we have created. However the Universe is really out of kilter when we stand by and allow this to happen to innocent children.