Power of prayer

HUNDREDS of airstrikes, surface-to-surface missile attacks and artillery bombs from Syrian and Russian war machines rained upon Ghouta.

At least 400 people have been killed and 1 800 injured, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

All countries bordering on Syria locked their borders. There is a sense that the world has deserted the Syrians.

The UN estimates that half a million Syrians have been killed. One quarter of the population are refugees and 6.1 million are internally displaced.

Cities have been destroyed and chemical weapons have been used more than 180 times, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. The UN Security Council failed even to pass a resolution for a 30-day humanitarian ceasefire. The Russian envoy said that “it was not realistic”.

ACAPS, an independent group that collects data about humanitarian crises, estimates that about 400 000 people live under siege and 70% of them are women, children and elderly.

Questions on whether or not humankind has failed itself are irrelevant and those that are impassioned to do something are helpless. Still those that raise their voices against such injustices don’t fall within the frequency of hearing of those who can change things.

Yet, there is hope. Hope that in whatever we can do (we can do something), no matter how little or how far we are from such crises, we have within us the gift of benevolence, kindness and the genuine concern for our fellow humans and, of course, there is the power of prayer.