Another Twitter user, posting under the name Free Syria, wrote above the now-iconic photo, “This boy will grow up and will take revenge, and the west will ask: Why do they hate us?”
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Several media organizations captured Omran’s heartbreaking image, which was shared thousands of times on social media, shocking even the hardened observers of the conflict.
But Omran has had a lucky escape – he appears to have been one of the first pulled out of the rubble before his parents, the Aleppo Media Center says. He walked the boy through the chaos surrounding the faltering building and plopped him in an ambulance before going back to help more people.
He is covered head to toe in dust, wearing just a shorts and T-shirt with no shoes.
Earlier this month pictures emerged of Syrian children in Aleppo setting fire to tyres to create “no-fly zones” for the planes carrying out airstrikes. The anti-government activist group has been contacted to confirm details about when and where the footage was shot. Silently, he reaches up to touch his mop of tousled hair and his wounded face, then seems puzzled what to do with his hand, which comes away covered with ash and blood.
Recently, the Syrian city has garnered worldwide attention as the humanitarian crisis there has worsened.
“The truth is that the image you see today is repeated every day in Aleppo”, said Mustafa al Sarouq, a cameraman with the Aleppo Media Center, who filmed the video.
“We were passing them from one balcony to the other”, Al Jazeera Mubashir journalist Mahmoud Raslan, who took the photo, told the Associated Press, adding that he had been handed three lifeless bodies before receiving the injured boy. The second one turned Omran’s life upside down.
This image of Omran Daqneesh has gone viral, showing the effects of the ongoing war on the country’s youth.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition activist network, also said three people were killed in the air strike and reported that Russian warplanes had fired a “vacuum missile”, an apparent reference to fuel-air explosive munitions.
Thousands of people have shared the image of a bloodied and dazed boy who was pulled from a building in Syria’s Aleppo following a bombing raid on the besieged city.
On Thursday, Russia said it is ready to support a call from UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura to halt the violence in Aleppo to allow for the distribution of humanitarian aid.
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With Aleppo being pounded Russian officials have said they are working with their American counterparts to try and find a solution to end fighting in the city.
