SAVING ORPHANS OF THE SYRIAN SLAUGHTER

AMERICA COULDN'T FIND A DECENT PRESIDENT, BUT TWO INDIVIDUALS ARE SAVING CHILDREN'S LIVES.

Scott Pelley profiles two people who put their lives on hold and aided thousands torn by the Syrian conflict; Sunday at 7 p.m. on CBS.

Elaph Yassin could no longer just tell their stories on television; she had to try and help change the lives of Syrian orphans she met covering the war in Syria. Yakzan Shishakly left a comfortable life in the U.S. to lend a hand with war refugees; he wound up directly aiding over 65,000 people torn by the Syrian conflict. Scott Pelley profiles these two humanitarians and meets some of the war victims they have helped on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, May 6 at 7:00 p.m., ET/PT on CBS.

No one knows how many orphans have been created by seven years of fighting. Estimates from local and international groups range from a conservative 100,000 to over a million. UNICEF warned the situation was creating a lost generation of Syrian youth but 60 Minutes found individuals who are working to save some of Syria's orphans of war.

Yassin was covering the war in her native Syria for Al-Jazeera television when she decided she had to do more than feed or give money to the refugees she was reporting on. "You feel guilty because you can go there and you give them hope that maybe if you put their stories on TV so maybe somebody will help them," she tells Pelley. "But usually nobody will help…they get used to see Syrian kids, like… suffering…they just then turn to another channel."

She convinced a wealthy friend to help her convert an apartment building in Turkey into an orphanage. Yassin says that giving the orphans steady shelter, food and some kind of a normal life gave the children back the dignity the war had taken from them.  She decided to call the orphanage Karim, Arabic for "place with dignity." Her orphans call her Mama Elaph.

Shishakly, grandson of a former Syrian president, was living comfortably in Houston where he owned an air-conditioning business. He had been there more than a decade, went to college and became a U.S. citizen.  But the conflict drew him back to his native land. "I had no experience with humanitarian work. And I just came, just a normal citizen, to help," he recalls.

Shishakly found out quickly what he needed to do. First, he started a refugee camp that he says grew to 65,000 residents. Then, he gathered private donations and used them to build a school and an orphanage. 

60 children live in it; he calls the orphanage, Bayti, which means "My House." It's a good start for traumatized war orphans. "They're looking for somewhere like what we call safe haven. It's just like they're looking for a place where they can trust to wake up the next day, and there's no airstrike… food on the table," says Shishakly. "They can find somebody [who] will not leave them behind. And that's what we're trying to offer."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-humanitarians-saving-some-of-syria-war-orphans/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab5j&linkId=51385321.