The brother of the Syrian boy whose photo in the aftermath of an airstrike this week has died, Aleppo Media Center director Yousef Saddiq told CNN this weekend. The images have resulted in unprecedented pressure to put an end to the crisis in Syria that has been ongoing since 2011.
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He described how he and Omran had been sitting on the couch in the family’s living room when the strike hit. another son and his two daughters were also inside the apartment.
News of a possible pause in the fighting came as the world was arrested by a video of a small boy, covered with blood and dust, pulled by rescue workers from the rubble of a building in Aleppo bombed by Russian or Syrian aircraft.
“It is very painful to watch your children falling in front of your eyes”, the father said in an interview with The Telegraph.
The United States has expressed shock at a photo circulating worldwide on social media that shows a dazed Syrian boy covered in blood and dust, calling him “the real face” of the country’s war.
His parents and three siblings are believed to have survived the attack.
He is later joined by two other young children and a man injured in the air strike. “I have cried many times while filming traumatized children”.
And a tweet from Kareem Shaheen, a Middle East reporter, said: “Have confirmed with Omar Daqneesh’s doctor, his older brother died from wounds sustained during strike that wounded Omran”. When rebels first launched their attack on the city in July 2012, it sent shock waves through government-held parts of Aleppo.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, stopped a meeting on humanitarian access after just eight minutes, saying it made “no sense” to plan aid deliveries when they would not be let into the besieged areas.
Russian Federation said on Thursday that its strikes by warplanes based in Iran hit areas held by the Islamic State jihadist group in Deir Ezzor province, the third day of raids from the Hamedan base.
The situation risks bringing the USA and Syrian government into direct conflict for the first time after American jets were scrambled to prevent the bombing of special forces and allies on the ground.
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Aleppo in particular has suffered greatly, with much of the city reduced to rubble amid fighting between the government of strongman Bashar al-Assad and various rebel groups fighting his rule. In the meantime, the Syrian regime is bombing its own people with near impunity.
