Since the Syrian civil war broke up four years ago, more than 11 million people have been displaced.
The majority of refugees are now in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, but hundreds of thousands are attempting a dangerous trip across the Mediterranean into Greece, hoping to find a better future in Europe.
How is Europe responding?
This is Amira, a 16-year old Syrian refugee. She is one of 30 million other children around the world who had to leave their home behind.
Read about her here:
Diary of a Teenage Girl Refugee
Can you imagine yourself in her situation? What do you think she misses most from the life she left behind?
Benedict Cumberbatch, famous for his Sherlock Holmes role, appeals for help in a Save the Children campaign
Answer the questions after watching the video:
- How many people around the world are currently fleeing their country?
- How many of those are Syrian?
- Why are Syrian people leaving their country?
Cumberbatch reads a fragment from a poem, Home, by a Somali British writer.
Here are some lines from the same poem.
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
(…)
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
(…)
I want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
I don't know what I’ve become
but I know that anywhere
is safer than here
