During my trip in June 2007 I saved three children from a place we call “Qomandanie”. These three children were there for the past three months after running away from home.

Their sad story starts when their father killed the mother by pulling her eyes out and putting a piece of wood on her neck and
pressing on it while his five children looked on – watching their mother take her last breath. He also killed one of his sons, who was 12, by beating him when he was trying to go to school. By the end of the night he was dead. The father also beat his 14 year old daughter injuring her kidney causing her to be hospitalized for a very long time. After recovering she was finally able to run away to escape his brutality.

This left these three children alone with their father. Being chained in a room left permanent scars on their legs and daily beating left even more scars all over their body and head. Along with the intense physical abuse they had to indure growing sexual and mental abuse – by their own father – the one person that was supposed to protect them.

The story of the old woman and her grandson in the yellow shirt is a sad one indeed. The boy’s father died in an explosion when he was seven. The boy’s uncle graciously married his sister-in-law to help take care of her family.

A couple of years later the mother died a horrible death herself and in the chaos her new husband also ended up dead.
This poor boy now had lost two fathers and one mother. Over the following months the many tears shed by the old lady
over the death of her two beloved sons caused her to go blind.
This is merely one of the many sad but true stories of lives shattered throughout the region. For many
their future is bleak but for some their future still has great potential. We need your support to turn tragedy into tears of joy.