The Prime Minister's wife Samantha Cameron has said she was horrified to hear the ordeals of children who have seen parents and relatives killed in front of their eyes in Syria's bloody civil war.
On a visit to Lebanon, Mrs Cameron, who is an ambassador for Save the Children, talked to young refugees and mothers about their terrible plight.
They included 10-year-old Abia who witnessed her mother dying after their home was shelled.
"I saw my mother die, I saw the house collapse on her. My father is missing, we do not know where he is," she said.
Another girl, Rana, 13, told how her uncle was killed in the street and of her terror during shelling and bombing.
"My uncle was shot through the heart - I saw this with my own eyes. I helped to bring in his body," she said.
After speaking to the youngsters, among one million refugees who have fled Syria, Mrs Cameron said: "As a mother, it is horrifying to hear the harrowing stories from the children I met today.
"No child should ever experience what they have. With every day that passes, more children and parents are being killed, more innocent childhoods are being smashed to pieces."
Mrs Cameron, on her first solo foreign trip as a public figure, was visiting Save the Children projects supporting health clinics in the Bekaa Valley.
She also spoke to a mother called Wadhaa, whose three-year-old son was killed by a sniper's bullet in front of her other six children.
The woman told her: "I was driving with my children, trying to escape Syria, when the shooting started.
"How can anyone shoot at a car with seven children in it? They shot my baby and he died. His brothers and sisters saw this happen."
Another mother told how she had struggled to get care for her severely disabled two-year-old son because of the risk of being killed by snipers or shells.