Marawi's collateral damage
When armed combatants, our soldiers, rebels, or terrorists die or are wounded, while fighting the enemies in the warzones and in the frontlines, these are expected casualties of war, and their demises are well-covered by the legal doctrine of assumption of risks. But when unarmed civilians, including and most of all the innocent children, the aged and the infirm, then these are the unexpected, perhaps unintended and unnecessary victims of atrocities. They are all collectively classified as collateral damage. And these include homes and public buildings, schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, markets, roads, bridges, and offices. The tens of billions of pesos being offered and allocated by government to rebuild Marawi may be far from enough.
If you go to Marawi now you will surely cry, shocked by the extent and breadth of man's inhumanity to man. Hundreds have been killed, homes and means of livelihood have been totally shattered, thousands are in evacuation centers, bewildered and in deep anguish over sons and daughters who died either due to gunshot wounds or from diseases and famine. There is a lack of food supplies, clean and potable water, and first-aid medicines. There are many who are willing to donate food items, basic clothing, beddings, blankets, mats, and all. But no one can bring them to the warzones. The highways are closed, there are many snipers and bullets can fly from all directions. It is a crisis of giant proportions.
Wide and deep craters are instantly created by bombs and explosives that missed their targets. All around the streets are shattered glass, broken wood and steel, and pulverized concrete with bloodstains on them. It is the sight and smell of death and people are gripped by utmost fear and hopelessness. Some parents have lost all their six or seven children. Some wives are wailing looking for their husbands. Half-naked children are crying inside the makeshift evacuation centers, there is no food, no medicine. There are no signs of hope and relief. It is as if the end of the end of the world is about to come. And no one is even saying "Salaam" or peace. It is Ramadan but all people, even Christians, are fasting due to lack of food.
The young are traumatized, and their personalities suffocated by the spontaneity of anger and fear, of disillusionment and hatred, of a feeling of helplessness on the verge of surrender and suicide. There are no sounds of peace and tranquility, but the roaring of bombs in the middle of the night, explosions from explosives, the rapid fire of machine guns, the sounds of grenades released from their launchers. The people are bewildered, and overcome with terror. They have no place to go, they cannot move and yet their spirits want to fly to a place away from war. The worst collateral damage is the one inflicted on the human soul. May Allah save His people in these bitter and painful times. Inshallah.
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