The recent headline read: ‘IS child bomber’ kills 51 at Turkey wedding’. News about violence by itself no longer shocks, with terrorist attacks taking place almost on a regular basis in several countries in the recent past. The perpetrators had all been mostly young men (and women) , all adults, trained in the art of detonation of bombs in crowded venues, of triggering suicidal bomb attacks, or grisly machete attacks, and other means of causing terror and shock to hundreds simultaneously. No country seems to be spared this torment. Even well-protected security driven nations are increasingly becoming targets of such terror attacks.

But this headline was different. And a greater cause for alarm is that the suicide bomber in this recent attack at Gaziantep in Turkey was a mere child, as young as 12 who brutally killed at least 51 people at a wedding.

Using child soldiers in times of war is not new. Since time immemorial, young boys have been brainwashed into the killing fields by wily ‘generals’, whose tactics involve training children into holding a heavy gun on their shoulders and focusing their target on their victims. 

Their minds have been blocked by the aims of their respective militant group, their impressionable brains coerced into following the rules endorsed by the leader.

At an age when they should be playing football in the fields or even better, carrying a satchel of books to school, they are numbed into learning the brutal acts of violence, of following the clarion call to kill as many as possible.

Let&’s accept the fact that education offers salvation, but are these children given the option of attending classes, of going to school on a regular basis? Most of them come from deprived backgrounds, notably in Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and some countries in Africa. 

The continuing war in Syria has thrown up disturbing pictures of children, sometimes as part of the renegade army and also as severely injured civilians. Masked in dirt and tattered clothes, their haunted eyes scream at us to look at them, notice their plight and act fast.

Unfortunately, the role of the United Nations has become watered down to be a mere shadow of an organization that was originally formed to control violence and propagate peace. 

It now simply watches helplessly as the inhuman net of terrorism reaches further and further into pockets of human society, invading homes that had previously been secure from the tentacles of terrorism.

The recent attacks at a café in Bangladesh are startling examples. Two of the ‘jihadists’ came from well-off backgrounds, they were “educated” and lived a “normal” life, as their parents will testify. No one had an inkling of the change in heart of these young boys who had been drawn into the tangles of the ISIS fold.  

We read about the missing teens in the UK who have suddenly abandoned studies and left to join the ISIS. What conspired in their minds for them to forfeit a secure life, to pursue a known and dangerous path? There are frantic parents who are clueless and have no leads on where their children have disappeared.  

There are definitely some very vital missing links. How do we find the connection between a child and terrorist organization? Between the loss of sweet innocence and the development of a merciless heart?  

When will we realize the imminent urgency of preventing further corrosion into the well-being of countless children who are on the verge of falling into the deepest, most despicable chasm of inhuman existence, of becoming ‘child soldiers’ for a cause they can barely comprehend?       

My heart weeps not for much for the damage to the world, (after all, one can always rebuild a city) but for the loss of innocence and childhood in so many young lives across the world.

The writer is Assistant Features Editor, The Statesman Kolkata.