TIME

The Price of Inaction in Syria

A few months into the Syrian conflict in 2011, I visited the Jordanian border at night, where shell-shocked Syrian families were crossing under cover of darkness to avoid sniper fire. A medic at the border post told me about a family who’d recently arrived. They carried with them their wounded 8-year-old son and his amputated leg.

His leg had been severed in an airstrike. He’d begged them to bring it with them as they fled, in the hope that it could somehow be reattached.

At the time, I

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