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It has put these children literally in the middle of a war zone - and today they walked through that area demanding peace - Monica Bodden has the story:

Monica Bodden Reporting

This morning residents of the Southside Community -where 11 year old Daniel Matura was gunned down- joined in with over 200 hundred students of Sister Clara Muhammad School - as they marched through the south side streets of Belize City - demanding peace!

Written on colorful banners and posters - were messages -most of which read - stop the violence!

These signs were waved high in the air - as others held up pictures of loved ones lost to gun violence. Many chanted assalamu-alaikum to the tip of their voices - which means peace be unto you in the Muslim community.

It was a touching demonstration - with one message... the violence must stop.

Lana Ammad - Prinicipal, Clara Muhammad Primary
"The purpose of this march this morning was to send out the message that we want peace. We want the crime and violence to stop because it is not only affecting the gangs; it's affecting our most innocent. It is affecting the future of our country, our children. We don't know what, if these children had the opportunity to continue living, what their lives would have turned out to be. And when you cut a young child's life short, we have cut a part of our future. But the message is about getting back the peace that we so desperately need, that we had one time where our children could have walked in a safe society. That's no longer the case."

Principal Ammad spoke about the importance of today's march for peace - and how it is being used as a healing process for her students to cope with the loss of 11 year old Daniel Matura - who also attended the Muslim Community Primary School in his neighborhood. Matura was gunned down on Monday morning.

Lana Ammad
"They were excited to be a part of it. It is a different - the whole atmosphere was different from yesterday. Children are very resilient. They have a way of bouncing back, unlike us as adults that have so much in our heads. Their little minds - that's the amazing spirit about children, the amazing thing about children, they are able to bounce back quickly an reorganize, rethink, and refocus. So that is a blessing this morning for them to be involved in this. We have from our babies in Infant 1 who were out there, and they were part of it. So, all of the children were into it. They were very excited, and it think that it was very therapeutic for them as well because they felt that they were actually doing something, showing they are not in approval of what has happened to Daniel. And they can't get back Daniel, but the spirit of Daniel lives on through them."

Ammad agrees that the road ahead for peace will not be an easy journey but it starts now. Today's march is only the beginning of an ongoing initiative.

Lana Ammad
"It has to do with the desire - the will of those concerned - those who are concerned with creating the kind of environment for the change, beginning our government, with us as parents, and making sure that this happens. As Muslims, we believe in peace; we don't believe in war and killing innocent people. We want to see the changes; it has touched us, and we cannot leave it like that. Not only that it has touched us, but it was a child in our school, and it has impacted us. So, this is not just a march today, and that's it. We're are hoping to form some kind of movement, and this is where the staff is going to come together, along with people from other schools who are concerned, and we're going to see how we're going to move from there because something has to come out from this."

The family has not yet finalized the arrangement for his funeral. His cousin Kaylon Matura was buried on Monday...