Fly High Habibi

My little brothers and sisters,

You should be here. You should be laughing and playing and squabbling and instead your cold little bodies are lying in the depths of the Aegean.

Your parents cry out with a grief that is un-paralleled, this horrible world has robbed them of all purpose and there is nothing left.

I’m sorry my brothers, my sisters you should be here. It’s beautiful, the sun is shining, the birds dancing through the clouds, yet you are not. The world, humanity has failed you. The big men and women who promised ‘Never Again’, who told your mummies and daddies that Europe was a place of salvation and justice, they were wrong.

They are so wrong, they took back that promise and they forgot that we need all your beautiful ideas. We need the music only you would make and to hear you sing the songs only you know.

We need you to come here and write stories, to teach other children when you are bigger and become astronauts and scientists and mothers and lawyers and anything you want to be.

I’m so sorry you were cold and no one came to help, there are so many that wanted to. There are so many people who love you, people whom you never met, but they love you so much. We love you and we won’t stop fighting, we will stay on the shores everyday waiting to help, there is always space for you all, here in our hearts, on our streets, in our schools.

I promise we will try, the ones of us who know, who understand you just want a place to play, to grow, to learn. We won’t stop trying. Sorry will never be enough but it’s all we have left. My brothers, my sisters we are so sorry.

So many people are thinking of you today, people who never saw your soft and cheeky smiles are thinking of you, hoping you are at peace. Our hearts are broken. All you ever knew was war I hope it’s peaceful where you lay now.

Fly high in your never-land Habibi.

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