Fragile human fate

However, the most pain and despair will inevitably fall directly on ordinary people. They are simply the most vulnerable in any crisis.

It can be said that 2023 is the year the world has witnessed the most pain in the past decades, when this is the year that humanity has had to go through too many major crises, from natural disasters, climate change, economic recession and especially because of the brutal wars of humans.

Devastation after a historic earthquake in Türkiye earlier this year. Photo: Reuters

One war, a million pains

As the world prepares to enter the final month of 2023, tragedy is reaching its climax: the devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has left thousands of civilians dead from bombs and rockets just weeks after the conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted.

Even the head of the United Nations - Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, had to exclaim: " We are witnessing an unprecedented killing of civilians in any conflict since I have been Secretary-General ". That was when he heard about the increasing deaths of children in Gaza, including premature babies trapped in hospitals.

As of November 20, more than 13,300 Palestinians had been killed in the fighting, including at least 5,600 children and 3,550 women. At least 1,200 Israelis had been killed execution-style in a surprise Hamas offensive on July 10 that triggered Israel’s full-scale war in Gaza. With most of Israel’s 2.3 million people left homeless and with almost everything they owned, the pain of the war is indescribable.

A woman cries in front of a house destroyed by an earthquake in the Old City of Marrakesh, Morocco. AFP

Save the "seedlings"!

Weather-related disasters displaced 43.1 million children in 44 countries over the past six years, or about 20,000 children every day, according to a UNICEF analysis published in October 2023. It was the first global analysis of the number of children displaced from their homes between 2016 and 2021 due to floods, storms, droughts and wildfires.

“It is terrifying for any child when a raging bushfire, storm or flood hits their community,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “We must step up efforts to prepare communities, protect children at risk of displacement and support those who have already fled.”

According to the analysis, the East Asia and Pacific region saw around 19 million children displaced by weather-related disasters between 2016 and 2021, accounting for more than 44% of the global total. Most of the child displacement in East Asia and the Pacific was due to floods, which displaced more than 12 million people, and storms, which displaced more than 6 million people.

According to the above report by UNICEF, Vietnam, along with other countries in the region such as China, the Philippines and Indonesia, is among the top 10 countries recording the highest number of displaced children due to facing natural disasters, climate change and other issues.

A child protects himself from heavy rain with a plastic chair. Photo: AFP

Civilians always bear the brunt of war and conflict, even though they are innocent. Most of the world’s major politicians, including those from Israel’s allies such as the US, France and Canada, have condemned the killing of so many civilians, especially children, in Gaza; accusing it of being an unacceptable “collective punishment”.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on November 14: “The world is witnessing the killing of women, children and babies. This must stop.” Secretary-General Guterres said: “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are being killed or injured every day.” President Joe Biden also bluntly stated about Israel’s blockade of Gaza’s largest hospital: “The United States firmly supports the protection of civilians in conflict.”

Obviously, no one wants to compromise or support the killing of civilians in combat. But is that reality still happening brutally in the wars of 2023, due to the inadvertence of bombs or the excessive hatred of the warring parties?

Tragedy of the common people

That tragedy has actually happened in countless wars throughout human history, but it can be said that it is only in 2023 that the modern world will clearly feel this haunting on a global scale. As we know, 2023 will also witness the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the largest war in Europe since World War II, entering its second year.

Just three months after the war broke out on February 24, 2022, nearly 6 million refugees had fled Ukraine, while another 8 million were internally displaced. Up to 90% of Ukrainian refugees were women and children, while most Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 were sent to the front lines. That is, it was a time when most of Ukraine’s more than 33 million people became victims of the war.

More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the conflict with Russia since February 2023, with about half of those deaths occurring far from the front lines, according to the UN Human Rights Office in late November 2023, and the actual figure is expected to be “significantly higher”. The war has sparked Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.

Every single person in Ukraine has a tragic story, losing all their possessions, their careers, even their loved ones and their future. For anyone who is not in a war, losing something in life is terrible. Yet millions of innocent civilians in Ukraine and Gaza have lost everything.

But the suffering of the people is not only in Gaza, Israel or Ukraine, but also in dozens of other war zones that are still going on day and night in 2023. For example, the civil war in Sudan as of October 2023 also had 9,000 to 10,000 people killed and 6,000 to 12,000 others injured. In addition, more than 4.8 million people are internally displaced and more than 1.3 million others have left the country as refugees.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded after nearly two years of conflict. Photo: Reuters

Mother Nature's Wrath

There are also no words or statistics that can describe the suffering that people have to endure in the floods, forest fires, impacts of climate change and terrible earthquakes that are happening continuously around the world in 2023, as if to show that Mother Nature is raging against humans.

The historic earthquake in Türkiye and Syria can be said to have completely recreated the image of the apocalypse in science fiction movies. When an entire land area of ​​​​350,000 km2, equivalent to the area of ​​​​Germany or Vietnam, was reduced to ashes in just a moment. An estimated 14 million people, equivalent to 16% of the population of Türkiye, were affected and about 1.5 million people were left homeless.

The confirmed death toll is nearly 60,000 in Türkiye and Syria. It is the deadliest natural disaster in modern Turkish history. It is also the deadliest in Syria since 1822, despite decades of civil war.

The aftermath of the earthquake in Türkiye had not yet subsided when another disaster struck the people of Libya, when a great flood caused by Hurricane Daniel swept away a quarter of the coastal city of Derna. The death toll in this disaster was between 18,000 and 20,000 people, equivalent to a fifth of the city's population. Many days after the disaster, people were still searching for the bodies of the victims that had drifted ashore. In fact, Hurricane Daniel also caused damage to a large area of ​​the Mediterranean, from Libya, Greece, Türkiye, Egypt and Israel - also causing countless pain.

Almost as soon as the Libyan deluge had receded, another disaster struck Morocco in September. The High Atlas earthquake devastated 2,930 villages with a total population of 2.8 million, killing more than 2,900 people; at least 59,674 homes were damaged, of which 32 percent collapsed completely. There is no telling how much pain civilians endure in such terrible disasters.

Of course, 2023 has also seen countless disasters that have dragged millions of people into “hell” in both the literal and figurative sense of the word. Wildfires in Canada, Hawaii or Greece; other devastating earthquakes in Nepal, Afghanistan or the Philippines; deadly floods in many countries have all taken the lives or futures of millions of people.

Four dangers, millions of child victims

According to the latest research published by the United Nations in October 2023, besides war, here are the top 4 reasons why children do not have the peaceful life they deserve:

+ Floods: The 10 countries with the most children displaced by floods, including coastal floods and flash floods, from 2016 to 2021 are: Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.

+ Storms: The 10 countries with the most children displaced by storms, including tropical storms, cyclones, blizzards and sandstorms from 2016 to 2021 are: Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Honduras, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Philippines, United States and Vietnam

+ Drought: Droughts differ from most other hazards in that they develop slowly, even over years, and their onset is often difficult to detect. The 10 countries with the most children displaced by drought from 2017 to 2021 are: Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Burundi, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Madagascar, Somalia and South Sudan.

+ Wildfires: Wildfires can be triggered by lightning or human action. The 10 countries with the most children displaced by wildfires from 2016 to 2021 are: Australia, Canada, China, France, Greece, Israel, Spain, Syria, Turkey, and the United States.

Much of the tourist town of Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, has been destroyed by wildfires. Photo: AFP

Stop if you can!

Never before has the fate of humanity in the modern era been so fragile as in 2023 in particular and in recent years in general. When everywhere people talk about migrants fleeing conflicts, natural disasters and the effects of climate change. Right at the Mexican border, thousands of migrants from different countries have had to live in the open air waiting for the day to go to the US, and thousands have even died or gone missing in house fires and gang attacks.

As of September 2023, at least 2.8 million people have migrated to the United States. Their future is unknown, but that is 2.8 million more sufferings that humanity has witnessed in 2023.

2023 was indeed a year of peak migration crisis, when the borders of many countries were filled with migrants seeking asylum. In addition to the US or Canada, there were also a series of other countries in Europe such as Poland, Finland, Sweden, Spain and especially Italy. Thousands of migrants lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea, in the huge flow of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

A woman cries in front of a house destroyed by an earthquake in the Old City of Marrakesh, Morocco. AFP

Italy alone has seen an “unusually high” number of migrants arriving in Europe this year, with 55,160 arriving by mid-June. That’s more than double the 21,884 arrivals in the same period in 2022. At least 1,039 people are believed to have gone missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year so far. In total, the International Organization for Migration has counted more than 27,000 migrants who have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014.

Thus, after many years of instability, 2023 has witnessed the basic peace of the world being broken by a series of wars and disasters occurring across continents; causing millions of millions of people to suffer the ultimate pain. Let us feel each of those pains, to understand that the world needs to stop the wars; let us join hands to build a greener and more sustainable world. Otherwise, any of us could become the next victim!

Tran Hoa

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/mong-manh-so-phan-con-nguoi-post278856.html