We need take action on behalf of Syria’s children

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Five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, with bloodied face, sits with his sister inside an ambulance after they were rescued following an airstrike in the rebel-held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo (Reuters)

It is heart breaking to see the picture of a helpless and innocent child staring at the world for abandoning Syria and its people.

In the images, as described in The New York Times, the child sits alone, a small boy coated with grey dust and encrusted blood. His little feet barely extend beyond his seat. He stares, bewildered, shocked and, above all, weary, as if channelling the mood of Syria.

We live in a world of contradiction and irony. While one nation is abandoned and at the brink of disaster, other nations are celebrating in the Olympics not giving a damn about the suffering of their fellow humans.

This shows the pathetic situation we are in.

Where is the so-called free world and international community. Are they only physically alive and spiritually and consciously dead?

Abubakar N. Kasim
Toronto

I am a 71-year-old man. I know nothing of social media and would not know where to begin to organise a demonstration concerning the images of the dazed five year old boy in Syria. Will anyone who does know how to organise such things please do so. These images show the urgency to stop this madness. In the name of whatever, or whoever, your God is: enough is enough.

Tony Harris
Stockton-on-tees

We need a new strategy for teaching languages

In The Independent's editorial relating to this year's A-level results you mention the drastic drop in students studying foreign languages, quoting the potential losses of up to £50bn as a result of our monoglot culture.

There is one obvious problem to encouraging foreign language study and that is English. As English is, de facto, the lingua franca of the world (excuse the foreign terms!), non-English speakers just have to learn English (difficult as it is) to communicate with any other English speaker. For native English speakers, learning, say, French means they can converse fluently in France, parts of Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and French speaking Africa. As far as the rest of the world is concerned they may as well speak Klingon!

Perhaps it is time to offer conversational languages as an option in schools, thus discarding the mastery of sometimes complex rules of grammar which can be daunting. Several languages could be taught at a basic level which would prove useful both professionally and, in an age of recreational foreign travel, socially useful making it more acceptable to students in general.

Patrick Cleary
Honiton

We need to remember those in need of humanitarian assistance

World Humanitarian Day is a time to remember the anguish of people who braved the horrors of displacement, desperation, discrimination and death, and others who have striven to put the lives of others before them and made exemplary examples of bravery and sacrifice. Around 130 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance worldwide. And while these statistics are staggering, and while the numbers of people who continue to make heartrending journeys in defiance of conflicts, cruelties, rampant poverty and terrorism continue to swell; it is time to remember that hidden behind these statistics are individuals whose lives are irrevocably devastated.

As His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan, an audacious symbol of modernity squarely put it “to create a true neighbourhood of peace where every family can enjoy the blessings of safety, where no child will be held back by violence and destruction, where all communities will know the power of reconciliation.”

Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London, NW2

Pollution is a threat to our children

Your correspondent in Letters suggested that child health may be improved by a long walk. I note he/she comes from Muswell Hill. I know it well – might I say that walking for adults in this area is a distinctly unpleasant experience due to the volume of air pollution. I wonder how beneficial it is to children who are on head level with car and lorry exhaust pipes.

Catherine Ormerod
Wolsingham

Guardiola is disenchanting supporters

It would appear that football manager Guardiola has been reading Voltaire. How else to explain his treatment of England's goalkeeper Joe Hart other than “pour encourager les autres”?

Maybe they respond to such matters differently in Spain but here, as a 60-year supporter of Manchester City (through thick and thin but mostly thin) I, too, count myself as one of “les autres”.

I do not often in that time recall myself feeling quite so disenchanted by events at the club.

Alan Hallsworth
Waterlooville