Franklin Lamb in CounterPunch:
I confess to having recently purchased four children near Ramlet el Baida beach from a stressed-out Syrian woman. I am not sure if she was what she said or if she was a member of one of the human trafficking gangs that operate widely these days in Lebanon selling Syrian children or vulnerable adult women. The vendor-woman claimed to have been a neighbor of the four children in Aleppo and that they lost their parents in the war. They appear in the photo above, sitting on this observer’s motorbike a few days after the sale: two five year old twin girls, a boy about one year and several months, and his eight-year old bigger brother.
She and the children had ended up in Lebanon but she explained to me that she was afraid to register with the UNHCR because she is an illegal and has no ID. The woman told me that she could no longer take care of the shivering children but did not want to just leave them on the street. She would give them all to me for $ 1000 (or I could pick and choose from among the siblings at $ 250 each).
More here.
