‘Kids were collecting used bullets that were on the ground’
Unicef ambassador and hurler Joe Canning tells Ryan Nugent the horror he faced in war-torn Syria
AWAKING in the middle of the night to the vibration of gunshots firing, is a memory not too many All-Star hurlers can share. It’s a stark snippet of Joe Canning’s time in war-torn Syria, a place, he says, where children collect spent bullet shells from the streets of Aleppo.
In March, it will be 10 years since the civil war between forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad and fighters opposed to his rule began in Syria. The conflict has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
It’s the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II, Canning says. Last month, 15 children were killed, with a further 15 injured and in total, it is estimated that around six million have been born into the war. Destruction and the shadow of sudden death is all they know. “That’s the scary thing. Imagine you were born into a war-torn country,” says Canning, who is keen to refocus minds on the children.
The Galway hurling icon (32) is speaking in his role as a Unicef ambassador. Along with the Irish Independent, he travelled to Aleppo back in November 2017 – the harrowing experience has stayed. A decade of carnage emerges from the charity’s data on the war.
Between 2014 and 2019 alone, 5,427 children were killed, with a further 3,639 injured. In the same period, there were also a staggering 547 attacks on education facilities.
In one striking image from his trip, Canning can be seen posing in a ‘team photo’ with a number of kids holding hurleys that the Portumna man had brought with him. The background shows building after building destroyed by bombs.
“That goes on for miles and miles,” he says.
“It’s not as if that’s one little patch of Aleppo, that is everywhere.”
Despite the harrowing reality they face and the destruction all around them, it was striking looking back at the images that the kids were all smiles as they played hurling and posed for photos.
“Any child, naturally, will try to find something that gives them enjoyment. But the difficult thing is they don’t have the opportunities. It’s much harder for them to enjoy things because they don’t have the access. There is a war going on around them,” Canning explains.
“You see kids here in Ireland, they might collect I don’t know, like Pokemon, they might collect GAA cards or soccer cards or stuff like that. Over there, they were collecting bullets, different bullets that were on the ground, obviously used bullets. They know from just the sound, that’s crazy for a child to know, what kind of a gun [the bullet came from].
“For them to know that, imagine your child or your nephew or your niece knowing that sort of thing in Ireland. It really is tough on them. Obviously they’re trying to get on with life as best they can, but inside Syria alone there’s nearly five million children who need assistance, who need help getting food, getting water, getting warm clothes, getting education, getting access to playing sport,” he adds.
Another thing that Unicef put their efforts into is psychological support, both for the children and the staff working with them.
“It’s trying to heal them from their trauma as such and give them outlets, even if it’s through sport, art, drama, music, just give them opportunities. Give them something to take their mind off what is actually happening around them, even for a couple of minutes,” Canning says.
What actually is happening around them is hard to comprehend. It’s hard to describe the situation there without seeing it in front of your own eyes, he explains.
“I remember one of the first nights I woke up with the sound of gunshots and the vibrations on my window. For me I’d never experienced that before. Now it wasn’t right outside, but it was close enough to have a bit of a vibration in the window
of my room. Imagine living with that every day. The psychological trauma must be huge. That happened me in a short space of time, for a couple of days and it still stays with me now.
“Obviously I felt fear and unsafe when that was going on, but imagine little children hearing that every day and every second, and what they go through.”
In Aleppo, children are often attending schools in virtually outdoor conditions, in buildings with no glass in the windows and wearing winter clothes during cold temperatures, many of them from families that have been displaced. On one occasion during Canning’s trip, when visiting a school on the outskirts of of Aleppo, a fighter jet could be seen flying low, directly above their heads. “About an hour later, we were going back into the city. About a kilometre away in the distance we could just see black smoke, so that jet that flew over our heads dropped a bomb a kilometre away from where we were,” Canning says.
“You see these things in movies, you don’t see it in real life, but that’s actually happening. You don’t mean to sound selfish, but it could’ve landed on us and that’s just the reality of it. You’re kind of going, this isn’t a movie.
“That’s actually happening a couple of hours away, that’s real life and that’s unfortunately how they’re living for the past 10 years.”
Another story that sticks with him is of a young girl named Nour, who he met during his visit.
A year prior to Canning’s trip, Nour had been picked up by a soldier in eastern Aleppo, an area that was under siege at the time.
Found traumatised, in the rubble, and at a guess, around three years old at the time, “she was barely able to speak she was so young”, Canning says. “They’ll never know what age she is.”
Canning has spoken about Nour’s plight a number of times since, saying “that stays with me the whole time”.
“Unfortunately that’s probably a norm over there in Syria. We’ve been in touch with the guys over in Syria, but they’re under so much pressure at the moment that it’s very hard for them to get back to us, it’s hard to get an update on how she’s doing.
“I’m trying but it’s very difficult.”
His Unicef colleagues are working hard on the ground to help the children survive a triple threat of the conflict, cold temperatures and Covid-19. “We’ve shown in the last year that we’re a very charitable country and I’m just asking again if we can dig a little deeper in our pockets, we can help children across the world and especially in Syria,” Canning says.
To donate to help children affected by the war in Syria, visit www.unicef.ie