How Many People Died In The Last 24 Days?

It's been an awful one month, hasn't it?

December 15 - A madmen with a shotgun barricaded himself in Sydney cafe. The world was on its toes, watching every moment unfold. Australians were stunned. He and 2 brave hostages died as an outcome.

December 16 - Taliban gunmen climbed over a wall into a school for army officers' children in Peshawar, Pakistan. They targeted kids as revenge for an earlier army offensive against them. 162 persons, mostly the school students, were brutally gunned down.

December 19 - In Cairns, a mother stabs 8 children to death. Australia is stunned for the second time in 4 days. 

December 20 - Two New York City policemen were shot to death at point blank range by an armed assailant who had earlier told people to watch what he was going to do. After the execution style murders, the gunman took his own life later. Many feel that the gunman was exacting revenge for the recent deaths of black men who were shot by police or died while in custody. The police men involved in these deaths were white. The two cops shot in their car were Chinese-American and Hispanic.

December 26 – 38 people were killed in Iraq when an ISIS suicide car bomb went off. They were after government fighters. That number capped off the most violent year in the country with 76,000 people killed of which 33,000 were civilians. It doesn’t feel like anything’s going to change in 2015.

December 28 – AirAsia flight QZ8501 went down in stormy weather over the Java Sea. Its 162 passengers and crew were on their way from Surabaya to Singapore. The crash was the third in Malaysia related air tragedies in the past year, following the disappearance of MH370 and the shooting down of MH17 over Ukraine. Today, search teams were trying retrieve the downed plane’s tailfin from the seabed in the hope that the blackboxes stored there are undamaged. This one was close to home. Many could appreciate the sense of loss and anguish borne by the families and friends who were waiting to meet their loved ones from Changi Airport. No matter how rationalists will remind us that more people die from vehicle accidents than plane crashes, it’s the sudden massive loss of life that will overwhelm any iota of logic.

January 1 – 9 deaths are reported in Japan as a result of suffocation from choking on New Year’s Day sweets called mochi.

January 7 –The offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were stormed by AK47 wielding gunmen who went on to kill 12 staff and policemen. The attack was apparently in response to the cartoons the newspapers published poking fun at Islam, Islamic terrorists and Prophet Mohammed. The western world came to a brief standstill upon hearing about this attack on the press. This was an unusual target but by no means devoid of controversy. In fact Charlie Hebdo thrived on it. The office as firebombed in the past for other work seen insulting to Islam. This brazen rampage however sent a very strong signal that no one could escape the wrath of sensitive Islamists in spite of whichever civil laws in whichever country. All an angry person needed was a gun and courage. The gunmen didn’t care that a policeman was himself a Muslim. He just happened to be on the wrong side of their guns. It doesn’t bode well for Western Europe where conservative politicians have been hankering for tighter refugee and immigration laws. No doubt this gross incident will be fodder for them, and other xenophobic inclined movements. Already the past weekend has seen pro- and anti-immigration marches in Germany. It’ll be easy now to say that if foreigners can’t even respect established cultural norms in a country, then they can go home and feel sorry for themselves. I’m a little afraid of emotions taking over.

So I’ve recalled 397 counts of loss of life in these morbid paragraphs, not including the grim full year Iraqi tally. All in the span of 24 days. I just felt people should know, and remember. These days, with news barrelling at us at light speed, we take things in quickly, absorb/process/reject it, and likely forget it, mostly because our brains can only hold and appreciate so much at a time. When I list things out like this, it’s clear to me that life is fragile and precious; that we who are clothed, have shelter and food, feel safe when we walk down the street, should feel privileged every day for the luck we are surrounded by; and that humanity has a long way to go to fixing ourselves.

Happy New Year.