THE LITTLE CHILD WHO IS STILL FLEEING FROM THE NAPALM

More than 30 years have passed by, but the little girl is still running, crying and screaming. She is wearing nothing, fear is her clothing. Behind her, a dark, threatening cloud is advancing, a cloud of napalm. The little girl is nine years old and her name is Kim Phuc. Her village is Trang Bang, which is a few kilometres from Saigon. It is during the period of the ?dirty war? in Vietnam. The photo is only the starting point. Kim survived and now she is able to find the courage to show us the terrible scars that the napalm left on her skin. But she repeats ad nauseam that the more terrible wounds are within her. But this has not prevented her from growing, from loving life, from becoming an ambassador of peace for UNESCO. It is her face, her grit, her dynamism that tell us that she has made it!
A month has passed by since the tragedy of Beslan. The children shown to us by the media during this time resemble little Kim very much. From the bottom of our heart we sincerely hope that all are able to survive this, to cope and to be able to continue to love life.
And, in such circumstances, everyone should feel the same way Father Champagnat felt when confronted by the death of Jean-Baptist Montagne: ?How many children,? he exclaimed, ?are in the same predicament every day, exposed to the same dangers because they have no-one??
I, you, all of us? we can do something for the children of Ossetia, for those who live in our area, for those who live alongside us, to overcome hatred through love!