A Santa Fe College cultural organization will host an awareness event today to highlight the dire circumstances affecting Syria.
Soul of Syria will be held at 1 p.m. at SFC’s Northwest campus gym. The event, sponsored by the college’s Arabic Cultural Association, aims to educate the public about the humanitarian crisis that is affecting the country.
“Killing, killing, killing happening all around the city,” said Omar Al Ajlani, a 25-year-old Santa Fe business administration senior and event organizer. “The government is killing everyone.”
The Syrian uprising started in March 2011 with people protesting for the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, said Sameer Saboungi, an 18-year-old UF exploratory freshman. He said President al-Assad ordered the Syrian army to kill innocent civilians to show the government is superior.
Saboungi, whose parents are from Syria, said he used to go there every summer but hasn’t been back in a couple of years because of the violence.
“The government is using the army to collectively punish everyone,” he said. “It’s just cold-hearted execution.”
He said these camps are limited in food and water because they are overpopulated and no one is funding them.
Currently, about 40,000 people have been killed from the conflict.
“I see videos on YouTube of children dying and corpses just lying in the streets, and sometimes I just shiver and cry,” Saboungi said.
