Omran’s image, sitting in an ambulance caked with dust and with blood on his face, encapsulated the horrors of war, and remains to be one of the most powerful images of our time.
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His older brother, Ali, 10, has died from injuries sustained in the same air strike that reduced much of their neighbourhood, in the Syrian city of Aleppo, to rubble earlier this week.
The boy was brought to the M10 hospital, treated for head wounds and later discharged.
The video and pictures were widely circulated online and covered in the media, refocusing public opinion on Syria’s five-year-old civil war and the plight of civilians, particularly in Aleppo. “We are afraid security forces will infiltrate our medical network and target ambulances as they transfer patients from one hospital to another”, said a doctor.
The decision was announced on Thursday as a haunting photo of a young boy rescued from beneath rubble of his home after a devastating air strike in Aleppo provoked outrage around the world.
Video of a rescue worker carrying Omran from the faltering building and placing him in the back of the ambulance went viral shortly after the blast.
Last year, a 3-year-old Syrian boy, named Aylan Kurdi was became the victim.
Fighting and air strikes in and around Aleppo has killed 448 civilians so far this month, the Observatory said.
“It is very painful to watch your children falling in front of your eyes”, said the father, who asked only to be identified as Abu Ali – which means father of Ali – for fear of reprisal from the Syrian government. “This is a daily fact of Russian and Syrian government airstrikes”. One of those killed is believed to be a relative of Omran’s family.
The video of Daqneesh was shot Wednesday in the rebel-held al-Qaterji neighborhood of the city.
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Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov later announced that Moscow was “ready to implement the first 48-hour “humanitarian pause” to deliver humanitarian aid to Aleppo residents” next week. Russian Federation said it backs an attempt to deliver goods next week as a “pilot project”.
