The hidden toll of Lebanon’s war
00:00Lately, Canadians are thinking more about the choices we make, aren't we?Where we shop, what we buy, our everyday choices say a lot about what matters to us.And your website domain name can too.Choosing a dotCA connects your brand to Canada while supporting local projects that help build a better, safer, stronger internet for all Canadians.So when you're choosing a domain, see the difference a Canadian choice can make.Visit choose.ca for more details.I'm Catherine Cullen. This is the current podcast.I don't like being at the shelter at all.
00:39We came because the situation was not safe,and we were very afraid the shelling was about to hit our house.I don't want to be here.I want to go back to my home, play with my toys, and sleep in my bed.For many children in Lebanon, the war has upended their daily livesand shattered their sense of safety.The organization Save the Children says almost 20 children a day have been killed or injured by Israeli strikes on Hezbollah since March.A fragile ceasefire has been in place since June and thousands of people have returned home.
01:13But many children are still displaced, living in shelters and not going to school.Award-winning journalist Sally Armstrong has recently returned from a trip to Lebanon.She visited children there to see how the conflict is reshaping their lives.She's in our Toronto studio. Sally, good morning.Good morning, Catherine.What is life like in Lebanon these days?Well, as you know, Lebanon's a beautiful place.It's on the seaside.
01:38It's got mountains.It's like a breadbasket.Everything you touch grows like topsy.But my God, it is wrecked.There are flags for Hezbollah, flags for Lebanon, flags for 18 other sex flying all over the place.And the worst part of all of this is that international law is being broken every single day.and it's the kids that are paying the price.What kind of conditions are the people who are living there,
02:05living in the kids in particular?Well, you know, I think the government of Lebanon made a pretty smart movewhen on March 2nd, I believe about a million were displaced,and they took over the schools.They told the students to go home and they would have classes online,and they turned the schools into shelters.So most of the people have been living in the schools.many of them, of course, have relatives someplace else
02:29and have managed to move the family to a safe spot.But as your opening lines read, these kids want to go home.These kids, you know, every single kid I talked to when I said,what about going home?The first thing they say is, I want to go back to my bedroom.I want to see it.I want to see if it's okay.And we know that.
02:48You don't have to live in Lebanon or Toronto to know kids want their own space.Yeah, you talked to a seven-year-old who wanted to goback and find her cat? Honestly, and this little girl, someone had painted whiskers on her cheeksand she had a little smudge on her nose. And she told me that they had to pack up and run away sofast she couldn't find her cat. And you know what, kids are, they're so, they're so easy to talk to.She said to me, my cat hides really well, you know. And then she chatted more about her situation.She said, but I have to go home and find my cat. She's not going home. There's nothing.left of her village. We talk about a ceasefire. Did it feel like a ceasefire? Was there a sense of
03:33some kind of peace or halfway to peace? No, there were 26 airstrikes the first night I was there.There is no ceasefire. And how is that affecting the children you spoke to?You know, again, they're so resilient that the thing Catherine you notice right away is the soundof the drones. There's a buzzing sound. And you hear it all day long, all night long. And so to the kids. So a littleboy, he's named Allie. He's 10 years old. He said to me, I see the drone. It goes right by my window.And I know it can photograph me. And I also know it can kill me. So they're surrounded by themessage of danger all the time. They're frightened to death, these little kids. Am I going to die?Am I going to die? Am I parents going to die? Is my puppy going to die? And they live with this day after
04:22day. On the other hand, they're quick to give you a high five. They're quick to make fun of thepomposity of an adult that wanders into the room. They're children. What do we know about howthat affects kids to be living in this constant state of fear, not, you know, the potential forout and out conflict? But as you say, the drones, too, not knowing if you're going to bephotographed, killed, what? All the research has shown that these children pay a lifelong price for beingcaught in conflict. As adults, they have a higher rate of alcoholism, of marriage failure,of relationship failures, of job loss. All of the measures are higher for kids who lived inconflict. And a child psychologist called Magne Relodin from Norway, he has followed this. He went
05:13back and did research from the Second World War, the children survivors. He was in Sarajevo doing itthere. And now he's looking at this. And they say two-thirds of children in zones of conflictshow signs of disorders in terms of psychology. Some of the really moving conversations thatyou had with these children were about what it was like to have to leave their homes in themiddle of the night when bombings began. Tell me about some of the kids you spoke to.Well, I want to tell you one story then. It was the last day I was there and I ran into agroup of teenagers. There were four of them. And luckily for me, they spoke English. So we hadquite a conversation back and forth about what it's like when someone says you have five minutes
06:01to get out of here, maybe three minutes to get out of here. So they told of the horror ofseeing the explosions getting closer and closer of their parents being frightened, of everybodygiving orders. But then as teenagers do, they started to laugh about their situation. So one of themsaid, I had to pack so fast, she's 15 years old. She said, I had to pack so fast, I packed all mymakeup and I forgot my medicine. So they all started to laugh. Then the next one said, you think that'sbad? I just got my braces off and I forgot my retainer. I thought my father was going to kill me.And they were trading these stories and making each other laugh. One of them, she's in grade eight,and she considers herself to be a budding artist. And she said, I was so afraid I'd lose my
06:44art equipment. I packed it all and then had room for nothing else and we had to leave. So she said,arrived at the refugee center with paint and brushes. Anyway, I said to them, you know, teenagers inCanada, in an event we call wildfires, and I explained to them what wildfires are, and that teenagersin the west of Canada and the north of Ontario, even in the Maritimes, were given just moments to leavetheir homes. And I said to them, I wonder, I wonder if they made the same funny mistakes that you did,but I'll bet they had the same fear that you did.So later in the day, I was leaving that town.And those kids saw me, and again, they spoke English.
07:26So they called to me across the field, hey, Sally, Sally.And I went over and they said, say hello to the teenagers in Canada for usand tell them we hope they get home soon.Honestly, if this isn't humanity at its best,These kids worrying about their cohorts in another country, it really struck me.And it struck me how crazy it is.And I was there in Lebanon during the story, but I was writing about children in Ukraine,in Sudan, throughout the Middle East, who are caught in conflicts being run by a small group of men who are looking for power and land.
08:10and these kids, they know better.Well, didn't one of them, one of them gave you a purported solution to all of this, right?Stick them all in a room.Tell me about this.He did.His name is Hamid, and he's 10.When I asked him of his age, he said 10, and then he said, I'm almost 11, you know.Anyway, he said, if I was in charge, I'd put them all in one room and I'd close the door,
08:31and I'd say, you're not allowed out until you come to an agreement.And that agreement would be, I'll stop hurting you and you stop hurting me.Is that not the bottom line of humanity?Yeah, I mean, it's almost painful to hear because we wish that it could be so simple.Yeah.You visited an organization that encourages children to garden.Why was that important for these kids?Well, you know, I was really dazzled by the things I went in with Save the Children.
09:03And I'm used to programs for kids in war zones.I've seen them for actually decades.this is new. This gardening was to give the children an opportunity of self-control and control overtheir own lives. That's why they were doing it. So they were given seeds. They planted them. They had to waterthe plant. They had to take care of the plant. And they were quite sweet offering me a tomatofrom one plant, a cucumber from another one. And you could see the effect of this. There's anotherprogram they were doing. You know, kids caught in conflict, the rate of child marriage,up, the rate of child work goes up, but so does sexual assault of children. So in another one of
09:46these programs, a little girl was standing holding this huge cardboard cut out of a ladybug, and shesaid to me through the translator, the ladybug has spots. You're not allowed to touch the ladybug spots.And if you do, and then she put a little hand up with her five fingers up, if you do, she said,these are the five people you tell.And I thought, what a brilliant way of helping children survive in conflict zones.So from the planting to these kinds of programs, a puzzle that you had to know the rights of the child in order to get the next puzzle piece.And these were the programs that Save the Children was doing.I was really impressed with their work.
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11:091,200 square feet to turn a house into a home.And seven and a half pounds to start saving for a whole new future.For all of life's moments, we're here when it counts.Desjardin.As you say, I mean, the children are suffering, not just in Lebanon.Children are dying in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine.In February, at the beginning of the U.S. Israeli war,with Iran, 120 children were killed when a school was bombed in Iran.
11:42A report from the UN over the summer said there were a record number of violationsagainst children in armed conflict in 2025.Why are we not seeing more legal action under international law?That's my question.That was the reason I wanted to do this story.And it's not, I mean, the Americans hit the girls' school in Iran.The Russians hit the biggest children's hospital in Kiev.Iran sent cluster bombs into Israeli villages.
12:12Israel sent white phosphorus into south Lebanon.All of these are war crimes, and nobody's doing anything.This is the shocking thing to me.We used to call people out on this, but now, I mean, you hear the President of the United States,he's proud of this.He's boasting about ripping out civilization and things like this.So we're at a place that I think someone needs to,make an effort to interfere, to bring back international law to where it belongs, and to hold people responsible.
12:47But who would you imagine would take up that mantle when so many great powers are ignoring international law?I think actually the strongest is always the people. You know, we've seen young people like Greta Tunberg, like Malaui U society. They stand up and say what you're doing is not okay with me.I think that's the cry that has to come out from everybodybecause the ICC, the International Criminal Court in the Hagueis being attacked by the Americans.The UN is having a hard time making its covenants and conventions worked.I think the people have to stand up and demand it of their own leaders.I want to talk about where Canada stands in all of this.
13:29Anita Anand Canada's minister of foreign affairs spoke with the UN last month.And she said, you know, we need to move away from the ideathat there's an ability to turn away from international law if it doesn't suit national objectives.She talked about the importance of collective respect for upholding international law.What can we reasonably expect of Canada?I mean, you talked about the youth taking up the mantle.What would you like to see this country's government doing?Well, this country has laws.
13:57We have certain standards about international law, and I feel we need to uphold them.And if we can't uphold them, and we can, but if we claim we cannot, we have to at least call it out.I think it is our job as a country to point the finger at those who are breaking international law.People are so afraid that if you tell the truth, someone else is going to charge more for your wheat or something.I think it's time we pointed out the wrongs and suggested the way to write them.I mean, as someone who works on Parliament Hill, there are statements that pass by all the time sort of making reference, sometimes collective reference.So we see more and more of these statements from many often Western allies talking about the importance of following international law.Can you point to one example, Sally, where you think Canada should have, whether it's just simply spoken out at all or been more forceful?
14:54I think certainly when it comes to the children, it is time we stood up and said, this is wrong.we have international law.We wrote these laws.The Geneva Conventions,the fourth convention was written in 1949.The Rights of the Child was written in 1989.It's time we stood up and said,these are the laws we all wrote together
15:17and we agreed on.And if you're breaking them,there have to be consequences for you.You have reported in conflict zonesthroughout your career.Wars continue to rage around the world.In fact, we are,living through the largest number of state-based conflicts since the Second World War, according to one analysis.
15:37Where do you find optimism?Well, you know, I do, Catherine.I do.And invariably, it's because of the people I meet.You know, I interviewed a woman in Lebanon.And she had just discovered on a satellite image that her house had been destroyed.And I asked her, I said, what's the hardest part of this?You know what she said to me?
15:57she said, you know what the smell of the soil on my farm after a rainstorm?She said, that stays with me.Honest to heaven, that people can think that way.And these children, these children that can come back at you, one woman I met,she was pregnant, she had to walk for two days to get to a safe place.She delivered her baby in a car in a town center.And here she was telling me about the baby.and you know what?
16:29Somehow life goes on.Somehow people manage.And because of the Internet,I can get back to these people sometimes.And I find out how they're managing.But my God, they're put to the test.It's tough out there.And maybe good for all of us to pause
16:47and reflect for a minuteon what kind of life that baby could have and will have.Sally, thank you so much for this.Thank you, Catherine.Sally Armstrong is an award-winning journalist and longtime conflict reporter recently back from a trip to Lebanon.For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.
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