DAMASCUS, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Upon seeing the people who are evacuating the Eastern Ghouta countryside of the capital Damascus, one could immediately notice the unexpected number of children leaving with their families.
In fact, most of the women have many children and infants in their arms, and it's strange to imagine the situation of having new children amid the war that has been dragging on for several years in that part of the capital.
The ages of these children range between infants and 15 years old, but the smaller age is the most prominent among them.
During the war, the people in Damascus, or the newlyweds, largely opted to have one child in most cases due to the war and the uncertainty that couples it.
In fact, many young men have decided not to get married because of the economic and security situation, let alone to have children.
But in Eastern Ghouta, the situation seemed different somehow.
In one of the government-run shelters hosting thousands of people from Eastern Ghouta, children are everywhere, with parents carrying their little children who cannot walk in their arms.
One man was sitting near a storage place to receive blankets with one child in his arm and another sitting next to him, both are one or two years old.
When asked by Xinhua about his children and how did he think of raising them in that war-torn area, he simply said "God created them."
An old man, waiting to have his eyes check due to an infection, said that having too many children is something in the heritage and culture of people in Eastern Ghouta.
"The original people of the towns in Eastern Ghouta are farmers and it is in their culture to have many children to help them in the land," he told Xinhua.
A woman, who identified herself as Samira, told Xinhua that she has six children, three of which were born in the war.
"I know it's hard to raise that many children in the time of war, but they are gifts from the heavens and all I can say is to thank God they are well," she said.
In this shelter, which was a training compound for electricity students before turning into a shelter for displaced people, 15 women gave birth upon arriving from the Eastern Ghouta and they were taken to a nearby hospital to deliver their new babies.
Many charities enter this shelter every day, many of which are concerned with the children and how to provide them with entertainment after the woes of war they have witnessed in such small ages.
They sing, jump and do some theatrical songs, repeating after the teachers and volunteers who came to lend a hand of help to this young generation, as most of the young children who were born during the war in Eastern Ghouta have not even been registered officially.
There is no exact data of the number of the children who left with their families from Eastern Ghouta toward the government-run shelters, but the government is working to prepare schools for them.
State news agency SANA said Wednesday that the authorities are preparing to provide education to the children within centers equipped with all necessary educational tools.
Abdul-Rahman Khatib, head of another shelter for the people of Eastern Ghouta, said that new schools will be opened next week for the children of Eastern Ghouta.
The education of the children poses a challenge as many of those in the school age are dropouts who cannot read or write.
Karam, a 12-year-old boy, said he was five-year-old when the war broke out and "now I cannot read or write."
The boy is now excited about having a proper education after all the years of war.
Fatima Rasheed, the head of the Social and Work Affairs department in Damascus countryside, told Xinhua that the work of her department has been focusing on helping the children and elderly people who are leaving Eastern Ghouta.
She pointed out that the psychological support is being provided for the children who are in bad psychological state, noting that some of the children couldn't recognize some types of fruits.
She said that the Ministry of Education in Syria is going to evaluate the educational level of the kids to help them enroll in schools and make up for what they have lost.
So far, a total of 128,000 civilians have left rebel-held areas in Eastern Ghouta through humanitarian corridors set up by the Syrian army.
The civilian evacuation, which has started on March 14, was made possible after the Syrian army advanced in Eastern Ghouta and captured 90 percent of that area from an array of rebel groups, which have been entrenched in that key area since 2012.
Also, thousands of rebels and their families are leaving Eastern Ghouta toward rebel-held areas in Idlib province.
Local reports suggest that the Syrian government will return the displaced people to their homes in Eastern Ghouta after the situation there settles, with the fact that civilians in many areas in Eastern Ghouta remained in their homes when the army entered.
