Partial blinding of Syrian baby sparks viral campaign

Heavily scarred child, known only as Karim, lost his mother in government artillery attack in Eastern Ghouta.

Moral support for the Syrian baby Kerim in the Eastern Ghouta
A Syrian boy places a hand over his eye in solidarity with Karim [Anadolu]

An image of a heavily scarred Syrian baby whose mother was killed in an artillery barrage launched by government forces has sparked an outpouring of sympathy on Twitter and other social media platforms.

The three-month-old child, known only by his first name, Karim, lost his left eye and suffered wounds to his skull in the attacks on the besieged Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.

A portrait of Karim by the Syrian refugee artist, Fares Jasem, which shows a rose covering the child’s scars, helped raise social media awareness about the boy’s plight, with some describing him as a symbol of the suffering children in Syria have undergone since the civil war started in 2011.  

Activists launched a number of hashtags in solidarity with Karim, including #SolidarityWithKarim and #StandWithKarim

https://twitter.com/hassna_wan/status/943308822818430977?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

As the social media campaign took hold, Twitter users posted pictures of themselves with a hand covering one eye. 

Those taking part included Bana al-Abed, a Syrian refugee who rose to international prominence for her tweets and video blogs from the city of Aleppo during the fighting between rebels and government troops there in 2016.

Others included the British permanent representative to the UN, Matthew Rycroft, who featured in a photo published by the British Foreign Office covering one eye.

Siege of Eastern Ghouta

Speaking at the UN on Tuesday, Rycroft said Russia should use its influence over the Syrian government to help the entry of food and other supplies into Eastern Ghouta, as well as allowing the evacuation of the injured.

“It’s just a thirty minute journey from Eastern Ghouta to Damascus to receive treatment,” he said, adding: “It really is a matter of life and death.”

Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Hakan Cavusoglu, also weighed in on the campaign, emphasising his country’s opposition to the Syrian government over the targeting of civilians.

“While the world was playing three monkeys over Syria, Turkey always stood by (babies like) Karim, as well as other oppressed people,” he said.

Karim’s image is not the first image of a child victim of Syria’s war to go viral and drum up such outpouring of sympathy. 

In August 2016, the image of a boyplucked from the rubble, sitting expressionless in the back of an ambulance after an air raid in Aleppo, became emblematic of the Syrian government’s campaign of aerial bombardment.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor of Syria’s war, puts the total number of casualties from Syria’s war at around 500,000 people.

Syrian children suffer in camps, no relief in sight

Source: Al Jazeera