The real reason those refugee children seem so grown-up

Your home town is being ravaged by artillery fire from friend and foe alike, the outskirts have been littered with landmines, there are snipers and suicide bombers on almost every torn-apart street corner. Your significant other and your two middle children are buried under six feet of breeze blocks and rubble.

You’re scraping around through the heat and the dust trying to find food and fresh water for your surviving kids. Shelter, there is none. The refugee camp is miles away and the road is long and the hazards are many and potentially lethal.

Somebody offers an escape route for one of your children – just one – you have the dollars. Which child do you send with this stranger, the strapping 17-year old lad who will probably be able to fend for himself if only he can get to mainland Europe and maybe wonderful, hospitable Britain…or your 4-year old daughter?

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Maybe one day your son will come back for you and your daughter, when the fighting is over…maybe.

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