Baladi News – (Alaa Nour al-Din)
After captivating the hearts and minds and changing the behaviors of millions of people around the world and grabbing a lot of attention by global media, Pokémon Go is used by Syrian children to draw attention to their unbearable sufferings.
A number of Syrian children from several cities and towns in Idlib countryside carried pictures of Pokémons from the game that they are deprived of playing in the hope of gaining as much attention from the world as these virtual creatures gain.
Activists shared a photo of “Syrian Pokémons”, so to speak, on social media. One of the photos reveals a child whose hands are stained with fuel because of his work, holding a picture that shows the statement “I am in Kafr Nabl, come and rescue me,” whereas another child wrote “I am in Kafr Nabudah, come and rescue me.”
Mohammed Idilbi, a cameraman and media activist, said that the sufferings of Syrian children are beyond any description, and any effort to help these poor kids must not be spared no matter if it would be fruitful or not.
In his interview with Baladi News, Idilbi added, “we are trying to utilize such global developments hoping to win some sympathy from the world by showing our children as virtual creatures after realizing that the pictures of their torn off body limbs will never bring about any good results.”
In addition to the message of Idlib’s children to draw the world’s attention to the Syrian tragedy, a Syrian 3D designer tried to convey his message using simple pictures posted on social media with view of showing how playing Pokémon Go would be in Syria.
The pictures included icons of Pokémons placed in several areas that must be normal and peaceful. In one of the pictures, he put a Pokémon next to the corpse of a Syrian child whose toys scattered next to him after an airstrike on his house. In other ones, he added a life ring next to a boat of immigrants offshore, and an amulet next to the fires of a huge explosion in one of the Syrian cities.
The global game, which brought about 19 billion dollars revenues in 13 days is being utilized by Syrians, like any important event in global media, in a hopeless attempt to remind the world of their sufferings after it turned its back to them.
It is noteworthy to indicate that since March 2011 until the 4th of June 2016, 21 thousand Syrian children had been killed, including 19773 murdered by Assad’s regime, meanwhile 2716 had been detained by the regime too. Also, about two million children had been deprived of education, 6 thousands had lost their mothers, and 37 thousands had lost their fathers, according to the most recent report of the Syrian Network for Human Rights that dates back to the month of June of this year.