YouTubeA photograph of a boy sitting dazed and bloodied in the back of an ambulance after surviving an airstrike in Aleppo has become a symbol of the brutality of the Syrian conflict.
The child is reported to be Omran Daqneesh, a five-year-old boy injured late on Wednesday during a military airstrike on the city.
The image, which comes from footage taken by the Aleppo Media Centre, has highlighted the desperation of the Syrian civil war.
The clip was posted to YouTube late on Wednesday, shortly after Omran was injured. It shows him being pulled from the rubble and placed in an ambulance after the airstrike.
His photograph, which has been shared thousands of times on social media, captures just a fragment of the horrors in Aleppo.
Omran was treated for his head injury at the M10 hospital and released later that night. According to the Telegraph, about 12 other children, all under the age of 15, had been treated there on Wednesday.
The M10 hospital itself was hit by an airstrike in early August, with the bombing captured on CCTV footage:
CCTV footage shows moment Aleppo's M10 hospital came under attack this morning. Such attacks almost daily now. pic.twitter.com/T08lJMReqI
— Louisa Loveluck (@leloveluck) August 4, 2016
More than 300,000 Syrians have been killed in the country’s civil war – and that’s not counting how many civilians have died in airstrikes in Aleppo in recent weeks.
But while the city has been under attack for years, the fight for control of Aleppo has intensified in recent weeks following gains made by combined forces of rebel groups and jihadists.
Russian and Syrian regime aircraft have responded with intensified bombing as they try to cut off a narrow corridor between besieged east Aleppo and the rest of the city, the Telegraph reports.
Unfortunately, this photo won’t be the last to remind us of war’s horror. There will be more airstrikes in Syria, and more children like Omran will be hurt or killed.
