Syrian Kids Are Posting Photos of Pokemon Go to Get People to Pay Attention to Their Plight

By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, ThinkProgress

23 JULY 16

eople living in the western hemisphere have been unmoved by five years of raging civil war in Syria that has killed 400,000 people, injured more than one million, and displaced 11.3 million people.

But in a desperate move to get the world to care about them, Syrian children are taking it into their own hands. In a new social media campaign by the Revolutionary Forces of Syria (RFS) Media Office — the media arm of the Syrian National Coalition, a coalition of opposition factions in the civil war — children are seen holding pictures Pokemon characters next to destroyed landmarks within Syria, capitalizing on the latest technology craze known as “Pokemon Go,” which allows users to track and capture Pokemon creatures embedded into the landscape around them. The signs held by children contain a photo of a Pokemon followed by variations of their background: their names, their towns, and a simple message to “save me.”

“Syrian children are victims of the war and the brutal and indiscriminate attacks that are carried out on a daily basis by regime and Russian jets,” RFS Social Media Editor, Mahmod Abo Bakr told NBC News. “The Syrian children are paying the price for the international inaction to stop the Assad killing machine.”

Activists have also taken to Twitter to post superimposed photos of Pokemon characters seeking safety next to real people, likely Syrians, doing the same.

The images are intentionally heartbreaking. For starters, it’s likely that these kids are too focused on staying alive to know anything about the Pokemon craze. Just a few days ago, a U.S.-led airstrike killed an indeterminate number of civilians, mistaking them for Islamic State terrorists.

Yet it also remains to be seen whether these images will change minds. The world briefly cared a great deal about Syrian refugees last year when the body of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old refugee traveling with his family, washed ashore on the Mediterranean Sea. That sentiment fell apart quickly after the terror attack in Paris, France when a fake Syrian passport was found next to the body of one of the terrorists. In the United States, 31 state governors proposed legislation to stop Syrian refugees from resettling in their states. And politicians running for the 2016 U.S. general election have proposed a ban on Syrian refugees from entering the country, saying that they would look children in their faces and tell them, “you can’t come here.” E.U. nations are also cracking down hard by closing their borders, forcing out many more child refugees.

Still, this is not the first time that people are bringing attention to their plight by using the “Pokemon Go” app. Palestinians are also using the game to show life under Israeli military occupation, Telesur reported.