Aaliyah Rose: Children of War. Children of Syria.

If you have been following this blog for the last 2 years, you will know all about what I have done to help the Syrian Refugees in Istanbul. If not I would suggest you read them before carrying on reading this blog.

February 2015

It doesn't seem as bad now, I mean its still bad, they are still living in squats and have nothing, but there's no longer big crowds of 15 odd people sat around. When I first set this up in 2013 you would see big groups of refugees everywhere, just sitting, and sleeping outside at night.

Now things have changed.

The children are still every where and there's a handful of adults, but not many. The children seem to be alone now. You see the children every where. There seems to be two categories the children slip into. They are either sat, on their side, hand out, very sad looking and looking very dazed, and they barely talk or they are very much like any other child. Playing, running, laughing. Although, there not like any other child. Yes, they are running around and laughing, but they also begging. They approach and ask for money.

I was told a few years ago a lot of the children who are begging, the ones sitting down, looking very dazed, are drugged with heroin. Very very sad indeed, some of these children are 2 years old. Then there's the babies sat with their mothers. Plenty of you reading this will have babies or young toddlers. We all know babies and toddlers don't sleep all day. Maybe for an hour or two, but not all day. These babies lie in their mothers arms from morning till evening. They don't move, they don't cry. They are drugged. They are drugged so they don't cry, don't move, and make it easier for the mother. This also makes the tourists feel more sorry for them, the tourists see a sleeping baby in the mothers arms and give money for the baby, little do they know, mum or baby rarely get the money. Its all Mafia controlled. I heard some shocking stories 2 years ago, saw some awful things, I will get round to blogging about them but there pretty hard to read about. Its awful to see such young children, under such heavy drugs, It really does break your heart. No one deserves this, War ruins the world.

Thanks to a few of my friends who donated some money, I fed a few of these children. The amount I fed seems like a massive number but in reality its just a tiny fraction of the hungry children hanging out on the streets. Thanks to Laura V, Laura D, Trixie, Trixies children, Kimari and myself I bought 60 Kebabs and handed them out to children. I bought 30 at lunch time, 20 in the evening and 10 the next day. A lot of kebabs.

The guys I were buying the kebabs from were convinced I had my Turkish numbers wrong and kept on asking me are you sure, are you sure. Yep, 30 kebabs please !

I walked from Fatih / Aksary up to Cemberlitas and handed all the kebabs out to children. The first few boys went absolutely crazy for the kebabs and I'm sure they would have taken them all given the chance.

A few of the children I saw on the walk were young, very young and very subdue. They looked petrified when I crouched down to feed them and were very cautious about accepting the kebabs. Im sure someone was close by watching them making sure they didn't do anything they shouldn't be doing.

When I reached Beyazit I found a little girl sat down, smiling, with a big grin on her face. She took a kebab and then asked for a second one. Who was I to deny her of food ? I kept on looking at her, I was sure I knew her. I carried on, I crossed the road and she followed me, she kept on following me. I fed some more kids and some young teenage boys, There is rarely teenage girls around.

The first little girl kept on grinning at me. I was sure I knew her. I couldn't forget that face, I had an idea who it was.

In the end I asked her her name. When she told me, I thought I was gonna cry. AMINA. Her name was Amina. I knew it. I knew it was her. I wasn't sure she knew who I was but she seemed happy. Maybe it was because someone was being nice to her, maybe it was because I was feeding her, but she seemed happy.

Heres a video of me giving out kebabs, chatting with Amina, and other children. Enjoy the video.

https://www.facebook.com/saved/?collection_token=100006510964722%3A586254444758776%3A121&cref=35

I met Amina two and a half years ago, I fell head over heels madly in love with her. She was the sweetest little thing, and still is. She laughed the whole time I played with her, and she told me to cover my hair. She covered my hair with my red scarf, she them went on to tell me once I grew my hair long and girly I could un cover my hair ha !

I was happy to see her. I was also super sad. Sad that her life was the same. Sad that this was her life. Forever, Her life wasn't going to change. I was sad that by the time she reaches her teenage years, she'll be too old to be begging on the street, she would of lost that ' cute' factor all the tourists will fall for.

Sad that she'll move on to a brothel.

A bloody brothel. This is their life.