audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - 7.5 million Syrian children are in need of humanitarian aid, and 14 million children across the region have been affected by brutal conflict that began more than four years ago. 2.6 million children are no longer in school and close to 2 million are living as refugees in neighboring countries. For these children, what's at stake isn't politics. It's their future. Having already lost their homes, schools and communities, their chances of building a future may also soon be lost. After years of conflict, at least 3 million children have left education. The decline in education for Syrian children has been the sharpest and most rapid in the history of the region, according to UNICEF. In some cases, children must give up school and start work to help provide for their families. In Lebanon, the government has opened public schools to Syrian children, but language barriers, overcrowding, and the cost of transportation keep many refugee children out of school. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 350,000 Syrians are currently suffering from severe mental disorders while another 2 million or more are suffering from mild to moderate mental problems such as anxiety and depression disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Saturday June 20th is World Refugee Day 2015.
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Mar 4, 2015 - Suruc, Turkey - SHIAR, 10, fled in the darkness with his family because it felt safer. When they were close to the border, the family decided to rest for a few hours. Shiar woke first and got up. It was then he stepped on a land mine. He lost his entire left hand and has three fingers left on his right hand. His chest, neck and chin are full of scars. What I'm most sad about is that I can't go out. I'm cold all the time around the stump and I don't have anything to keep it warm.
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Feb 8, 2015 - Azraq, Jordan - FARA, 2, loves football. Her father tries to make footballs of all the material he could find. Every night when he says good night to Fara, and her older sister he hopes that they will wake up to a new day when they will get a real football to play with. All other dreams feels unattainable for him.
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Feb 8, 2015 - Amman, Jordan - Eight-year-old MARAM had just come home from school when the rocket hit her house. A piece of the roof landed right on top of her. Her mother took her to a field hospital, and from there she was airlifted across the border to Jordan. Head trauma caused a brain hemorrhage. For the first 11 days, Maram was in a coma. She is now conscious, but has a broken jaw and can't speak.
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Mar 4, 2015 - Dar-El-Ias, Lebanon - ALI, 10, has a liver disease that prevents his blood from filtering as it should. As soon as he goes out in the sun, he gets severe sores, similar to burns. His mother, Turkiya, 30, has tried to get help, but it's hard. 'We've been to three hospitals. At two places, they were horrified when they saw him and turned us away at the door. At the third place, we were able to see a doctor, but he couldn't do anything. He said it was too complicated', she says. Ali knows that he shouldn't go outside since his skin gets a rash. But he can't help it when he hears the others playing. 'It's just so boring to only sit in the tent,' he says.
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Feb 8, 2015 - Nizip, Turkey - Sleeping Syrian refugee children - MOHAMMED, 13, loves houses. Back home, in Aleppo, he used to enjoy walking around the city looking at them. Now, many of his favorite buildings are gone, blown to pieces. Lying in his hospital bed, he wonders whether he will ever fulfill his dream of becoming an architect. 'The strangest thing about war is that you get used to feeling scared. I wouldn't have believed that,' says Mohammed.
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Mar 4, 2015 - Zahle Fayda, Lebanon - RAHMA, 10, was born with a visual impairment. In Dar'a where she's from, her parents had put her in a special school for visually impaired children. She liked the school and felt safe in its building. When the war started, the family fled. A hospital along the way offered Rahma an operation but it was unsuccessful and now she is completely blind. 'I never go out', she says. 'I just sit here in the tent.'
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Feb 8, 2015 - Azraq, Jordan - IMAN, 2, has pneumonia and a chest infection. This is her third day in this hospital bed. She sleeps most of the time now. Normally she is a happy little girl, but now she's tired. She runs everywhere when she's well. 'She loves playing in the sand,' says her mother Olah,19.
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Mar 4, 2015 - Zahle Fayda, Lebanon - AHMED, 8, is blind. He lives in a plastic tent with his family and dreams of getting an operation so, one day, he can see. 'There's a rubber tire outside our house that I like to play with. But sometimes it rolls away and I can't find it,' he says.
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Feb 8, 2015 - Suruc, Turkey - There's a difference between closing your eyes and sleeping, as six-year-old GULISTAN knows. She prefers to shut her eyes and just pretend, because every time she really falls asleep, the nightmares start. 'I don't want to sleep here. I want to sleep at home,' she says. She misses the pillow she had in Kobane. Sometimes she lies against her mother and uses her as a pillow.
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Feb 10, 2015 - Dar-El-Ias, Jordan - WALAA, 5, wants to go home. She had her own room in Aleppo, she says. There, she never used to cry at bedtime. Here, in the refugee camp, she cries every night. Resting her head on the pillow is horrible, she says, because nighttime is horrible. That was when the attacks happened. By day, Walaa's mother often builds a little house out of pillows, to teach her that they are nothing to be afraid of.
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Feb 8, 2015 - Beirut, Lebanon - RALIA, 7, and RAHAF, 13, live on the street. They come from Damascus, where a grenade killed their mother and brother. Together with their father, they have slept on the sidewalk for a year. They are always close to each other. Rahaf says she is afraid of 'bad boys'. When she says it, Ralia starts to cry.
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Feb 8, 2015 - Amman, Jordan - MOYAD, 5, and his mother wanted to bake a pie. Hand in hand they went to the market in Daraa to buy some flour. They walked by a taxi, where someone had placed a bomb. Moyad's mother died immediately. The boy, who was flown to Jordan, has shrapnel in his head, his back and his pelvis.
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May 13, 2015 - Suruc, Turkey - SHIRAZ, 9, was three months old when she was stricken with a severe fever. The doctor diagnosed polio and advised her parents to not spend too much money on medicine for the girl. Then the war came. Her mother, LEILA, starts crying when she describes how she wrapped the girl in a blanket and carried her over the border from Kobane to Turkey. Shiraz, who can't talk, received a wooden cradle in the refugee camp. She lies there day and night. War has compromised the mental health of millions of Syrians.
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Mar 4, 2015 - Zahle Fayda, Lebanon - AHMED, 8, is blind. He lives in a plastic tent with his family and dreams of getting an operation so, one day, he can see. ''There's a rubber tire outside our house that I like to play with. But sometimes it rolls away and I can't find it, he says.
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Feb 8, 2015 - Azraq, Jordan - Five-year-old TAMAM is scared of her pillow. She cries every night at bedtime. The air raids on her hometown of Homs usually took place at night, and although she has been sleeping away from home for nearly two years now, she still doesn't realize that her pillow is not the source of danger.
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March 4, 2015 - Zahle Fayda, Lebanon - ZAHLE FAYDA. Mohammed, 4, has short stature. He lives with his parents and two brothers beside a rubbish dump, where a temporary camp was set up. His family fled from Raqqa when he was a baby; he remembers nothing but war. He has never spoken. The family wants to see a doctor who can look at his growth problem, but so far, they have not received any help.
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Feb 9, 2015 - Bekaa Valley, Lebanon - HANY AL MOULIEAH, 21, and his brother AHRAF, 4, from Homs hope to be able to get residence in Canada soon.
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Mar 4, 2015 - Zahle Fayda, Lebanon - TIRAM doesn't know how old she is. She has problems with her back and she can't see. She has never gone to school. 'I like listening to the TV. That's what I usually do. I sit in the tent and listen to the programs. I get happy when there are cartoons. Then there's a lot of sound. It's funny. I would love to be outside, but I don't know the area. Sometimes I sit just right outside the tent,' she says.
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