The images from Syria this week are horrifying. "Everything is terrifying. I was horrified what was going on a couple of days ago," Kinan al-Rifai said.
However, to Syrians in middle Tennessee the images are nothing new.
"We've lost more than two million people in this war, the majority of them were under the age of 15," she said.
Syrian refugee al-Rifai moved to middle Tennessee about two years ago from Lebanon. Before that she fled Syria after the revolution developed into a civil war. Since then she's lost loved ones to the war in Syria.
"In the past three months I lost my cousin who is 28-years-old in Syria and in two months I lost my uncle too and both of them died because of the war," she explained.
Tuesday's chemical attack was not the first in the war torn country. In 2013, hundreds of Syrians died in a similar attack. "What in the world is happening, why this war doesn't want to stop? Why is the situation getting worse and worse every day and nothing is changed," al-Rifai asked.
Al-Rifai said President Trump's decision to fire missiles at a Syrian air base, killing a hand full of civilians, including children, will not help.
"They are making the situation worse," al-Rifai said.
Instead, she hopes the U.S. will move forward with a strategy that will not take innocent lives. "Something that keeps the peace, that keeps these people from dying every single day. Not by bombing, not by putting another force to bomb in Syria, to fight another force. That's not going to help," she said.
