PowerPoint Show by Andrew

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Four and a half years of violent conflict have destroyed entire regions of Syria. Neighborhoods have been smashed by shelling and government barrel bombs, and towns have been seized by rebels and ISIS militants, then retaken by government troops, killing hundreds of thousands and injuring even more.

The United Nations now estimates that more than 4 million Syrians have become refugees, forced to flee to neighboring countries or Europe. Caught in the middle of all this horror are the children of Syria, relying on parents who have lost control of their own lives and are now being forced to make difficult choices in desperate circumstances. Though many families remain in Syria’s war zones, thousands of others are taking dangerous measures to escape, evading militias, government forces, border guards, predatory traffickers, and more, as they struggle to reach safety far from home.

A Syrian youth runs past blood stains and debris following airstrikes by government forces on the rebel-held town of Douma on August 20, 2015.

A wounded Syrian girl stands in a makeshift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of Syria’s capital of Damascus, following shelling and air raids by Syrian government forces on August 22, 2015.

Syrian children walk on rubble after their building partially collapsed following a reported airstrike by government forces on a rebel-held area of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on April 19, 2015.

A boy carries a bag of new clothes ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan in Jobar, a suburb of Damascus, Syria, on July 15, 2015.

Children pose on their bicycles in front of a destroyed building in the center of the Syrian town of Kobane, Syria. on June 20, 2015.

Girls who survived what activists said was a ground-to-ground missile attack by forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad hold hands in Aleppo’s Bab al-Hadeed district on April 7, 2015.

Syrians evacuate an injured boy from rubble following a reported airstrike on the rebel-held town of Douma, northeast of Damascus, on June 16, 2015.

Blood covers the hands of an injured boy lying in a field hospital after what activists said were airstrikes by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus on February 6, 2015.

A man carrying his niece reacts after he lost his sister, the child’s mother, at a makeshift hospital in Douma, Syria, on August 24, 2015.

A boy on a horse rushes away after hearing the sound of a Syrian fighter jet flying over Idlib city, Syria, on July 18, 2015.

Syrian girl Salam Rashid, 14, who lost both of her legs below the knee in 2012 in a tank shell attack, poses for a picture at the MSF Hospital for Specialized Reconstructive Surgery in Amman, Jordan, on August 11, 2015.

A boy, injured from shelling by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Ain Larouz village, reacts at a field hospital in Idlib province, Syria, on May 15, 2015.

The body of a girl is covered with a shroud at a makeshift hospital in east Damascus, following reported airstrikes by regime forces, on June 30, 2015.

A Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighter walks with a girl in Tel Abyad town, Raqqa governorate, June 16, 2015.

Residents return to their villages on a pickup truck after Kurdish People’s Protection Units fighters said that they regained control of the area from ISIS fighters in the southern countryside of Ras al-Ain on May 13, 2015.

Syrian refugee children laugh as they sit on the side of a road that leads to the Akcakale border gate as they wait to return to their home in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad on June 18, 2015.

A man lifts a young girl clear of the wire as Syrians fleeing the war pass through broken-down border fences to enter Turkish territory illegally.

Syrian refugees ask for water in Akcakale at the Turkish border near the Syrian town of Tal Abyad, on June 13, 2015.

A Turkish soldier offers water to a Syrian refugee child after crossing into Turkey from Syria in Akcakale, southeastern Turkey, on June 14, 2015.

Syrian children arrive at the Akcakale crossing gate between Turkey and Syria on June 16, 2015.

A Syrian child holds a drawing as he waits to disembark from Belgian Navy vessel Godetia in Italy’s Augusta port on June 10, 2015. Around 250 migrants from Syria arrived at the Sicilian harbor from a Damascus refugee camp.

Migrants from Syria and Afghanistan arrive on an overcrowded raft from the Turkish coast to the Greek island of Lesbos on July 27, 2015.

Syrian refugees arrive on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean sea from Turkey on an inflatable boat, on August 23, 2015.

Seven year-old Ariana, a Kurdish-Syrian migrant, rests before crossing into Macedonia along with another 45 Syrians near the Greek border village of Idomeni, Kilkis prefecture, on May 14, 2015.

Syrian migrants cross under a fence as they enter Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, August 27, 2015.

Mazen, a migrant from Syria, throws his daughter Bissan, 3, in the air while standing on the beach outside the police station on May 29, 2015, in Kos, Greece.

A migrant carries his daughter on his shoulders as they walk along a road in the town of Presevo, Serbia, on August 24, 2015.

A young migrant coming from Syria sleeps on a train heading north from Nis, Serbia, to Belgrade on July 18, 2015.

Four-year old Lilas, a migrant from Syria, and her father pose for a photo in front of their refugee home after receiving articles for daily use prepared by donors at a distribution center in Muelheim an der Ruhr, Germany, on August 20, 2015.