3 days after the picture of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh shocked the world, the father of the young boy spoke for the first time and described how his family was buried under the rubble when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army bombed Aleppo.
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Among those who died in Aleppo on Saturday was the older brother of Omran Daqneesh, the little Syrian boy who was pictured sitting in an ambulance dazed and covered in blood after an air strike.
According to a Reuters report, Ali died due to excessive internal bleeding and organ damage. Ali, the ten-year-old attained severe injuries after he was injured with his brother Omran and his family members when an airstrike reduced his family’s building to rubble.
Aleppo, in northern Syria, has been besieged for years during that country’s civil war.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 448 civilians have been killed in air strikes this month in and around Aleppo.
More than 300 civilians have been killed in a three-week surge of fighting and bombardment in Aleppo city, a monitoring group said on Saturday.
A doctor who identified him in the photos said Omran was brought to the hospital with head wounds, but didn’t suffer any brain injuries, and was later discharged.
A still image taken on August 18, 2016 from a video posted on social media said to be shot in Aleppo on August 17, 2016, shows a boy with bloodied face sitting in an ambulance, after an airstrike, Syria.
Residential areas, mosques and markets are being increasingly hit, said Zouhir al-Shimale, a local journalist and resident of Aleppo. The activists reported fresh air raids on Aleppo and its suburbs on Sunday, inflicting casualties.
Russia, which has been conducting airstrikes in support of the Syrian regime since September, said it was willing to support weekly 48-hour ceasefires to allow aid to reach besieged areas.
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A Syrian activist, Kenan Rahmani, wrote online about the plight of Syrian children: “Omran became the “global symbol of Aleppo’s suffering” but to most people he is just that – a symbol”.
