Written by Iona Fyfe

By the river, the children are playing
The sun and its heat growing strong
But around them the bullets are raging
And we don’t speak of who they come from

On the banks of the Tigris, we don’t speak of who they come from

In the West Bank town of Qayyarah,
It’s river it now runs with red
The young men are ghting their battles
And the children they walk among dead

On the banks of the Tigris, their children they walk among dead

Their fathers, their brothers, their husbands,
Their sons and their lovers they mourn
Their faces and names unascertained
And we don’t know of where they belong

On the banks of the Tigris, we don’t know of where they belong

Mosul, she now lies in ruins,
Her people have all gone and fled,
Our headlines are written in anger,
And we judge only what we have read

On the banks of the Tigris, we judge only what we have read

The survivors they still have their tongues tied
And they won’t talk of what they have seen
The enemy lines always changing
In this battleground, no hands are clean

On the banks of the Tigris, in this battleground, no hands are clean

The powers declared liberation,
But what are the people freed from?
Not the bullets, the fighting, the bloodshed,
Of a battle that’s hardly begun

On the banks of the Tigris, the battle has hardly begun

By the river the children are playing,
War silently floats by their eyes,
Oh what will become of our children,
As destruction, it lurks in the skies

On the banks of the Tigris, destruction it lurks in the skies