According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog, more than 300 civilians have been killed in a three-week surge of fighting and bombardment in Syria’s devastated Aleppo city. During this particular strike, eight people died, five of whom were children.
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He is Omran Daqneesh, who is 5-years-old child.
Omran was the first he pulled from the rubble after the bomb hit, and after finding his second son, handed them off to rescue workers so he could go back in and look for his daughters. The father, who gave his name only as Abu Ali – meaning “father of Ali” – fearing reprisals from the Syrian regime, said: ‘It is very painful to watch your children falling in front of your eyes’.
The defence ministry issued an official denial that it carried out a strike on eastern Aleppo on Wednesday evening when the images of four-year-old Omran were taken.
Russian Federation said Thursday it would stop attacks on Aleppo for 48 hours next week to allow delivery of humanitarian aid, indicating it would also prevent the Syrian government from bombing there, provided the United States could guarantee a similar pause by the “so-called moderate opposition”.
But several monitoring groups in Syria have made numerous reports of Syrian government and Russian aircraft conducting bombing raids in urban areas controlled by Islamist groups and Syrian opposition fighters.
A source close to the family said: ‘They seem so lost and confused. Past year the photo of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s body that washed up on a beach shook the world.
For instance, 50 people were killed in April when a hospital near Aleppo was bombed. But “we really believe it’s important to get beyond temporary, ephemeral and localized cease-fires”, State Department spokesman John Kirby said.
Omran’s home city Aleppo has been divided by government control in the west and opposition fighters in the east since 2012.
Kirby, whose boss John Kerry has for months attempted to forge a pathway with Russian Federation to end the war, said Thursday that “we all have to pull together to try to reach a better outcome”.
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On Thursday Russia said it supported the idea of weekly 48-hour ceasefires to allow humanitarian aid to enter besieged parts of Aleppo, a plan the rebels also cautiously welcomed.
