Residents in Argentine capital Buenos Aires on Monday (September 19) were able to see the horrors of the Syrian civil war firsthand through an Amnesty International installation set up in a subway station.
A banner outside the installation along the corridors of the Carlos Pellegrini subway station, just below the city’s Obelisk monument reads: “To understand what is happening in Syria, nothing better than being there for a minute.”
Residents are invited a simulated Syrian living room. A motion sensor, then triggers an explosion using television screens, set up behind a window frame, giving the impression you are experiencing the blast.
The installation intends to create awareness of the plight of millions of people crippled by war. Syria is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in its history. This crisis has forced more than half of the population to flee their homes and has devastated thousands of families.
There are currently over 60 million people worldwide who have been displaced from their homes.
A thirty-six-year-old businessman, Julio Cesar Montenegro, said he couldn’t imagine living in Syria at a time like this.
“You don’t even think about it. You see it only on the news. To see it from an angle as though you were in the place is something that gets to you. It gets to you because, if you have children, just imagine to be in a place like that. It makes you feel bad,” Montenegro said.
A week-old Syrian ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia was in deep trouble on Monday as a rebel official said it had practically failed and signaled insurgents were preparing for a full resumption of fighting.
The agreement is the second ceasefire negotiated by Washington and Moscow this year in the hope of advancing a political end to a war now in its sixth year, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A twenty-seven-year-old manager, Abel Gimenez, said he felt fear upon seeing the video.
“Fear, you feel very scared to see it through that window. The truth is it must be difficult to live like this, thank God it de not happen here,” Gimenez said.
“We have simulated a living room, which could be any house in Syria and through the windows, we simulated using television screens, the reality seen from a house in Syria. You can see bombings, destruction and the consequences of these years of sustained civil war afflicting the country,” added Amnesty International Argentina Director, Lea Tandeter.
