Warren Morgan: We must do all we can to help Syrian refugees

On September 14 1940, at 3.30pm, a German bomber dropped 20 bombs over Kemptown as it attempted to evade pursuing Allied planes.

Two of the bombs hit the Odeon cinema on St Georges Road, killing 55 people, many of them children. It was the largest single loss of life in Brighton during the Second World War.

Most of us have never directly experienced war, and fortunately never will. We won't face the daily threat of bombs falling from the sky on our streets, and the deaths of family members. However many millions of people are, today, experiencing just that. It is no wonder that they are taking their children and fleeing that horror in search of safety.

The journey to safety is, however, no less dangerous than the war zones they have fled from. Hundreds are dying in the clear blue seas off Greece that many of us know well. Others are meeting unimaginable ends locked in the backs of lorries on European motorways, having given people traffickers what little money they have left.

Whatever our daily pressures and problems, nothing can come close to having to leave your home, everything you own and everyone you know, and risking your life to find safety in Europe, a place that knew war for centuries but has chosen peace through a Union we too often dismiss.

We can and should play our part in giving some of those refugees sanctuary and care. Brighton and Hove will take at least five households, with their accommodation, education and healthcare costs met by the government. We urgently need to find homes in the private rented sector for them.

The refugees we see on our screens each day could have been our grandparents, fleeing bombs in Kemp Town for a safer location. Those children, washed up on beaches in the Mediterranean, could be our family members. We need to ask ourselves, if those refugees were our relatives, what help would we want for them?

Go online, search "help Syrian refugees" and do something to save a life.