Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76Plough Quarterly • Summer 2015 29 Omar is not the only child carrying this kind of weight; too many think they are somehow to blame for the tragedies around them. For a whole year, Omar was unable to speak of his torment. Only after numerous conversations with Save the Children’s team, and group sessions with other children, did he start to shake his feeling that he was to blame for Fatima’s death. Even now I can give little detail because he finds it so difficult to discuss his story–and I do not want to make it harder for him, so I do not press. In a camp for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a mother, Jemilah recounts, “We were hiding in our basement. It was dark because the electricity had been cut. With no phone, we knew nothing of the outside world. No one could bring supplies into our village, and no one could escape either. In those four days Omar is not the only child carrying this kind Omar, age eleven, lives with his family in the Za’atari refugee camp, Jordan. “I was so scared my tongue was frozen, I couldn’t even talk.” underground, my fourteen-year-old son ate only half a piece of bread and drank two glasses of water. Then everything ran out. “We had a baby with us, my granddaughter Safaa. She was one year old, so my daughter wanted to wean her, but she would cry loudly. We had seen before that a crying baby attracts the attention of armed men; they come to find the baby, and kill the whole family. Every time she cried, my daughter breastfed her, so she would not get us all killed. “My son said to me, ‘I am a man, I am not afraid.’ But when another family arrived and reported that men were searching basements for families, my son became terrified. He started crying on my shoulder, asking what would happen if we were found. I knew the answer. But I lied. I said I would save him, that every- thing would be OK. Photograph by Jonathan Hyams / Save the Children