Children have always been the most vulnerable group in wars. When adults start a war, children have no choice but to experience, at minimum, the same horrors as their parents. As Wednesday marks International Children's Day, we tell three stories about children and war.
A JOB
Mohammed is a skinny, cheerful nine-year-old, and he has an important job, according to the staff who work in the Lagkadikia Camp, which located in the north of Athens and provides accommodation for nearly 900 Syrian refugees.
"We got many Mohammeds here, but he is the best one," a worker at the camp said in English.
Even though he did not understand English, Mohammed knew the worker was praising him, so he smiled appropriately.
Mohammed helped the staff in the camp sort out meal tickets, a job he took seriously. Breakfast tickets went into one pile, lunch tickets to another and then supper tickets. When he counted the tickets, he did so in Greek, having learned to count to 30 in the language.
After the bloody conflict engulfed Aleppo -- Mohammed's home town -- his family was forced to embark a long and toilsome exodus, moving from one place to another seeking sanctuary. Throughout the years before they arrived in Greece, Mohammed had never been able to attend school or receive any qualified education.
It is estimated that about 22,000 of the 55,000 Syrian refugees in Greece are children. On average time, these children have been out of school for 18 months.
Asked about his life at the camp, Mohammed said there were many snakes lurking about, but he isn't afraid of them.
"I used to keep one snake as my pet," he said.
A DREAM
"My dream is simple. It's improving this poor place," Ibrahim al-Nemnem said. The 13-year-old Palestinian boy wants to one day be an engineer to improve the living conditions in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.
The camp, with a population of approximately 82,000, is the most overcrowded refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
"We thought the camp is supposed to be a temporary residence, but it seems we might live here for decades. That is why I want to renovate my poor camp," Ibrahim said.
Ibrahim says the longstanding conflict in Palestine has deprived him of all his rights. He wants to play with his friends in a garden or in a playground, but the camp is too crowd for that. Should he become an engineer, he wants to create a playground.
Most children share similar thoughts with Ibrahim, wanting to become teachers and doctors to help improve their habitats. Ibrahim is lucky enough to have his family's support to stay in school.
But dreams can be fragile. Save the Children, a non-governmental organization dedicated to children's welfare, estimates that 551 children in Gaza were killed, 3,436 injured and about 1,500 children lost their parents in 2014.
Mahmoud Zidan, a 16-year-old boy also from the Shati camp, is not as lucky as Ibrahim. His dream of becoming a teacher was shattered three months ago because he had to quit school and find a job to support his family.
"Life does not have to be about unemployment and poverty," said Mahmoud, who now works as a fisherman. "We can do more."
