From Horror to Hope - Part 1

And because of the abundance of evil, 

the love of many will grow cold.

Matthew 24:12

 

It is morning in the capital city of Bangladesh in 2010.  Four adult men surround a boy of seven, forcing him into an alley.  They bind his hands and his feet, then crack open his head with a brick.  They hold him down and cut his throat with a switchblade, slash his chest and abdomen in an upside down cross, then hack off a portion of his genitalia.  Having gone a "little too far" for their purposes, the men leave the child in the street to die.

 

The boy's mother was looking for him, and finally found him so covered with blood he was almost unrecognizable.  His father hired a rickshaw (the quickest transportation the poor man could afford) to take his child to the hospital, holding the boy on his lap, pressing his hands on his son's slashed body, trying to keep his insides from falling out. 

 

If you have not seen this story, I am sure you are asking why in the world the men would do this to a young child.  The answer is simple.  They belong to a gang who force other people to beg for them.  People in Bangladesh live on less than $1 a day.   The men believed that people would give more money to a maimed or injured child than to an adult.  They have maimed at least five other children - all of them about the same age.  One of the men who confessed to mutilating this boy told investigators that the gang would keep children confined for months in tight spaces or even barrels.  Then they would send them out to beg.  Each child would bring back about $7 a day.  The gang would keep all but about 25 cents - the amount the beggar child was given to stay alive.