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The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and the wider West Asian landscape are passing through a tragic and anxious moment. Recent incidents across Gulf countries have reportedly left at least 16 people dead and hundreds injured. Most of those affected were not soldiers, not strategists, and certainly not decision-makers. They were ordinary workers from poor Asian nations who had come to the Gulf carrying a simple dream: to earn a living, support their families, and build a better tomorrow.
Wars are often described in grand words — strategy, retaliation, national interest. But behind these heavy words lie fragile human lives. In reality, it is ordinary people who have nothing to do with these rivalries, pay the heaviest price.
Take the example of the 16 people who died in GCC countries. What was their fault? What role did they play in geopolitical rivalries? How can their deaths ever be justified?
One story is especially heartbreaking. An 11-year-old girl in Kuwait City was sleeping peacefully in her bedroom with her younger sister when the incident happened around midnight. Kuwait’s air defenses reportedly intercepted incoming drones and missiles. Yet a piece of falling shrapnel pierced through the roof of the house and struck the child inside her bedroom.
A bedroom should be the safest corner of a child’s world. Yet for that little girl, it became the place where life ended. Why should a child pay the price for conflicts she could never understand?
There is immense suffering across the region. In Iran, reports indicate that more than 1,500 people have been killed and thousands injured in recent strikes. In Lebanon too, hundreds have reportedly lost their lives. Many in Israel have died and many US soldiers too.
Every life matters. Every death is a universe extinguished. To the parents of migrant workers, their sons were everything. To the parents of that little girl, she was their entire world. The same is true for the families mourning loved ones across the world. War brings only one harvest — pain, loss, and lingering sorrow.
Beyond the deaths lies another layer of suffering: the silent fear of those who continue to live under the shadow of war. Thousands are fleeing to neighboring countries. Those who cannot leave live with the constant roar of bombardments, the trembling of missile strikes, and the suffocating uncertainty of what might happen next.
The GCC region is home to millions of expatriates. Their relatives back home watch the news with trembling hearts, carrying their own invisible burden of anxiety.
I feel this deeply — as an expatriate, and even more as a father. My wife and I are raising two daughters in Qatar. My elder daughter is fourteen. A large part of her childhood was already overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now once again she finds herself confined indoors.
My younger daughter was born in 2020, in the middle of that pandemic. She is still too young to understand the complicated conflicts of the adult world.
Last year, when missiles were launched toward Qatar by Iran, we saw the flashes of the missiles in the night sky. My younger daughter asked, “What is that?” I told her it was fireworks. The sky was loud and frightening. She was scared.
Even today, she calls missile strikes “fireworks.”
I see similar confusion among children her age. Recently, during one of her school’s online classes, a loud explosion was heard in the sky during an attack. One child asked the teacher, “Why is Iran attacking us?”
How do we answer such questions?
How do we explain the darkness of the adult world to innocent minds that are still learning about kindness?
Perhaps it is time for humanity to move beyond the medieval mindset of war. Why can we not imagine a world where nations choose peaceful coexistence despite differences?
It may sound like a utopian dream. But once, flying through the sky, speaking instantly across oceans, or walking on the moon also seemed impossible. If science and technology can turn impossibilities into realities, perhaps humanity too can turn peace into policy, compassion into culture, and coexistence into courage.
Even the most complex conflicts can be resolved peacefully if there is strong will, sincere intent, and patient dialogue.
To those who hold power in this world, I humbly make this appeal:
Stop this war.
Stop it for the poor workers whose only dream was to earn bread for their families.
Stop it for the innocent children who cannot even understand why the sky is exploding above their homes.
Stop it for the ordinary families who simply wish to live quietly, and sleep peacefully.
Because the sky was meant for the warmth of the sun, the calm of the moon, and the quiet sparkle of the stars — not the roar of missiles and the rain of metal.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
A deeply moving article. It powerfully reminds us that the true victims of war are innocent children and ordinary families living in fear. May peace and wisdom prevail so every child can grow up under a safe sky.