Palestinian children fly kites to show their solidarity with the Japanese people
near a Japanese-funded housing project in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip,
March 18, 2012. The event was organized by the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency to mark the first anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and
tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis in Japan.
(Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
near a Japanese-funded housing project in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip,
March 18, 2012. The event was organized by the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency to mark the first anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and
tsunami that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis in Japan.
(Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Palestinian refugee school children in Gaza gathered to fly kites on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of a deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the UN refugee agencysaid.Around 1,000 children flew kites at a Japanese-funded health center in the southern Gaza town Khan Younis, UNRWA said in a press statement.
Japanese founder of the kite-flying commemoration Akihiko, which has been held in 23 locations in Japan, and 5 countries worldwide, said the Gaza event “will greatly encourage Japanese people living in the area stricken by disaster.”
Director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, Christer Nordahl said, “It is typical of the children of Gaza who experience so much hardship to think of children suffering elsewhere in the world. It is a wonderful and creative symbolic act of solidarity.”
The quake in March 2011 unleashed a 10-meter tsunami and risked a nuclear meltdown in Japan, leaving some 25,000 people dead or missing.
