The Children of Aleppo

Here is a letter I felt moved to write to my local newspapers. I hope they print it but I would like to share it with you all in any case. Our world is sliding into darkness and we need to do what ever we can to stop this from happening.

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Where to start? I am an avid reading your both your publication and also many other newspapers and current affairs outlets. I find myself, at times, at the point of despair. Has the world gone mad?

Hospitals are being barrell bombed. Children are being left on their own refugee camps across the Middle East and even in on our doorstep. The perpetrators of this violence go not only unpunished but not even, to a large extent, even challenged by our government and their allies. In Yemen we actually supply the instruments of death, duly delivered to their targets by our ‘friends’ the Saudi Arabians.

I could easily give up on the human race. We are callous, hairless primates bent on our own self destruction. However this is not the whole story. This is not how things have to be. Human beings can be better. We are better than this.

I saw a video on Facebook about ‘The Toymaker of Aleppo’. This is man who comes from Finland and has 6 of his own children. He risks everything to smuggle soft toys (and other supplies) into the Syria’s largest city. The children of that tormented place flock to him when he arrives. What a hero. What an amazing human being. We are better than the cynical murdering leaders who have driven us to this situation.

So what can we do? What can I do? Well I honestly do not know what the answer to this crisis is. But we can look in the mirror and we can search our souls and whatever we ‘can’ do we must. I am still an optimist.

We can stop this.

Yours faithfully,


Andrew Fisk
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