NABIL, Ala'a's father

“I was close to losing my mind. I have never felt so helpless as the moment I saw those children strapped to those tanks.”

My children have been devastated by this conflict. My son Ala’a cries a lot without telling us why and he’s started sleepwalking. My other child has started to stutter.

The younger children still cry when a plane goes overhead or a pot falls to the ground. They’re traumatised. I’ve spoken to lots of parents and they say the same thing.

No child has escaped this. Children aren’t children anymore. Watch any child. They play and look normal, but they can only keep this up for a while, and then they become sad again.

In Syria I buried two children with my own hands – Maher, who was 11, and Wasem, who was three. They were both executed with knives to punish their parents.

I carried Wasem’s body after it was dumped in the village. He had his neck cut through from the back, and a bullet in his elbow. I remember thinking as I picked up his body that his arm was not attached properly. But then I realised, of course, it did not matter, he was already dead.

Wasem was a lovely child – so talkative. Everyone in the village loved to see him play and smile. Now he’s dead.

Children are on the frontline in this war in many ways. I have seen with my own eyes children used as human shields. When two tanks came into the village I saw children attached to them, tied up by their hands and feet, and by their torsos. The tanks came through the village and no one stood in their way or fought because we knew we would kill the children.

After that happened I cried like a woman. I was close to losing my mind. I have never felt so helpless as the moment I saw those children strapped to those tanks.

The name of the village was Saydeh. Let everyone know this is where this terrible thing happened.