Their Children Are Our Children
Palestine. Sudan. Congo. Different borders, different conflicts, different histories, but children who laugh, cry, play, dream and reach for their parents in exactly the same ways ours do.
There are moments when I wonder what has happened to us as a human family. Where is the humanity?
The slaughter of any population should disturb us. But the killing of children should break something inside all of us.
Not because Palestinian children matter more than Sudanese children. Not because Sudanese children matter more than Congolese children. Not because one religion, nationality, ethnicity or political cause deserves more compassion than another. Because they are children.
How do we look at a frightened little girl in Gaza and not see our daughter?
How do we see a child running from violence in Sudan and not imagine our son?
How do we hear about children being killed, injured, displaced or sexually violated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and allow geography to make their suffering feel distant?
A border does not make a child's fear less real.
A different language does not make a mother's grief different from ours.
No parent should ever have to hold the body of their child because powerful adults decided that war, territory, resources, ideology or geopolitical interests mattered more than that child's right to grow up.
The Numbers Are Children
Statistics are necessary because they show us the scale of what is happening. But we have to be careful that numbers do not turn human beings into abstractions.
In Gaza, UNICEF reported in August 2026 that at least 300 children had reportedly been killed in the 300 days following the October 2025 ceasefire announcement, approximately one child every day. UNICEF has also reported that more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured over the course of the conflict and that more than 56,000 children have lost one or both parents.
Think about that beyond the statistic.
A child who had a favourite food.
A child who hated bedtime.
A child who wanted their mother when they were scared.
A child who had friends, inside jokes, favourite songs and plans for adulthood.
In Sudan, UNICEF reported that at least 160 children were killed and 85 injured during just the first three months of 2026. Since the current war began, the United Nations has verified more than 5,700 grave violations against children, affecting at least 5,100 children, including more than 4,300 who were killed or maimed. UNICEF emphasizes that the real toll is believed to be considerably higher because insecurity makes verification difficult. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations reports 519 children killed and another 399 maimed among 918 verified child casualties in 2025. The UN says 2025 became the deadliest year for children in the DRC since its monitoring mechanism began in 2005. Hundreds more children suffered sexual violence, abduction and recruitment into armed groups.
These numbers should horrify us. But they should never become just numbers.
Please Don't Forget Wafaa
On September 6, 2026, 8-year-old Wafaa Akila was reportedly killed alongside her father, Youssef Akila, in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. Six other people were injured.
Whatever political arguments surround a war, Wafaa was eight.
Eight.
She did not create this conflict.
She did not determine borders.
She did not control governments, militaries or armed groups.
She was a little girl.
So why is she no longer livnig?
Please don't allow her to disappear when another headline replaces hers.
And Please Don't Forget Hind
Hind Rajab was six years old.
She was killed in Gaza in January 2024 after becoming trapped in a car with members of her family. Two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics who went to rescue her were also killed.
In a 2026 investigation, a United Nations commission examined Hind's case as part of its findings concerning children killed by Israeli security forces in Gaza.
Hind became known around the world.
But Hind should have become known for something else.
Maybe for becoming an artist.
Maybe a doctor.
Maybe a mother.
Maybe for doing absolutely nothing historically significant at all, simply growing up, laughing with friends and living an ordinary life.
That was her right.
Wafaa deserved that too.
So do the children whose names we will never learn.
Our Nervous Systems Were Never Designed for This
There is another part of this conversation that we rarely discuss.
We are witnessing human suffering through devices designed to move our attention rapidly from one thing to another.
We watch footage of a grieving mother.
Swipe.
A celebrity story.
Swipe.
A destroyed neighbourhood.
Swipe.
A recipe.
Swipe.
A dying child.
Swipe.
A funny video.
Our nervous systems were not built to process the suffering of thousands of people from across the planet before breakfast. Eventually, we can become overwhelmed, anxious, angry, numb, or disconnected. That numbness does not necessarily mean we have stopped caring; sometimes, the nervous system simply cannot remain in a constant state of alarm. But we need to distinguish regulating ourselves from looking away. You are allowed to put your phone down, sleep, laugh with your children, and experience joy while terrible things are happening elsewhere. In fact, protecting our nervous systems can help us remain engaged for longer. Take slow breaths, put your feet on the earth, pray if prayer is part of your life, meditate, move your body, sit near water, spend time with people you love, and step away from graphic images when you need to. Then come back to your humanity. Read, donate when you can, write to elected officials, support humanitarian organizations, and speak the names of people the news cycle has already forgotten. Teach your children that another child’s life does not become less valuable simply because that child was born on the other side of the world.
This Cannot Become Another Trend
Social media has conditioned us to experience almost everything as a trend.
For several days everyone talks about something.
Then something new happens.
Our feeds change.
Our attention moves.
But children are still living inside these conflicts after our algorithms stop showing them to us.
Palestine cannot be a trend.
Sudan cannot be a trend.
Congo cannot be a trend.
Human suffering cannot be something we care about only while it is viral.
There is no expiration date on compassion.
We Are Being Encouraged to See One Another as Enemies
Our world feels increasingly divided.
Left against right.
Religion against religion.
Nation against nation.
Men against women.
One ethnicity against another.
One historical narrative against another.
We can disagree about governments, borders, history, ideology and policy. Those conversations matter.
But there should be one place where humanity meets without negotiation:
Children should not be slaughtered.
That should unite us.
Advocating for Palestinian children does not require hatred of Jewish people.
Caring about Israeli children does not require indifference to Palestinian children.
Standing with Sudanese children does not diminish Congolese children.
Compassion is not a finite resource.
We do not have to ration it according to nationality.
The answer to dehumanization cannot be more dehumanization.
Choose Love Without Choosing Silence
Peace is sometimes misunderstood as passivity.
It isn't.
You can be furious about injustice and still refuse hatred.
You can demand accountability without deciding that an entire population is your enemy.
You can oppose war without losing your capacity for tenderness.
You can grieve people you have never met.
As you look at your own children tonight, safe in their beds, asking for another snack, fighting bedtime, leaving toys everywhere, and understand that somewhere else a parent wants nothing more than the privilege of being annoyed by those ordinary things again. That thought should not divide us,
It should connect us. When one mama cries, we all cry.
How You Can Help Children in Palestine
If you are able to donate, consider established humanitarian organizations working directly with children and families.
Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) provides medical and humanitarian assistance, including surgeries, medications, food, clean water, formula, hygiene supplies and support for orphaned children.
UNICEF is providing children and families in Gaza with nutrition assistance, safe water, healthcare, vaccines, mental-health support and education services.
And help does not have to begin or end with money. Learn about Sudan. Learn about Congo. Support reputable humanitarian organizations working there. Contact representatives. Share verified information. Refuse racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic or dehumanizing rhetoric regardless of who uses it.
Most importantly, refuse indifference.
Their Children Are Our Children
Maybe that is the spiritual lesson hidden beneath all of this pain.
There is no Palestinian mother's grief that becomes less sacred because I was born somewhere else.
There is no Sudanese child's terror that matters less because I will never know their name.
There is no Congolese child whose dreams are less valuable than the dreams I have for my own children.
Humanity cannot only mean the people who look like us, pray like us, vote like us or live beside us.
Humanity has to mean all of us.
Hold your children a little tighter.
Love your neighbours.
Protect your nervous system enough that you do not become consumed by despair.
But please, come back.
Come back tomorrow.
Come back after the algorithm has moved on.
Come back when the story is no longer trending.
Remember Wafaa.
Remember Hind.
Remember the children of Palestine.
Remember the children of Sudan.
Remember the children of Congo.
Remember every child whose name never reached our screens.
Their lives are not geopolitical footnotes.
They are children.
And if anything on this earth should be capable of bringing humanity together, surely it is our shared responsibility to protect them.
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