18-08-2016

Syrian opposition activists released a haunting image of a young boy  rescued from the aftermath of an airstrike in Aleppo. Video shows the  boy sitting inside an ambulance covered in dust and with blood on his  face. 

Syrian opposition  activists have released haunting footage showing a young boy rescued  from the rubble in the aftermath of a devastating airstrike in Aleppo.The  image of the stunned and weary looking boy, sitting in an orange chair  inside an ambulance covered in dust and with blood on his face,  encapsulates the horrors inflicted on the conflicted northern city and  is being widely shared on social media.Doctors in Aleppo on  Thursday identified the boy as 5-year-old Omran. Osama Abu al-Ezz  confirmed he was brought to the hospital known as “M10” Wednesday night  following an airstrike on the rebel-held district of Qaterji with head  wounds, but no brain injury, and was later discharged.Doctors in  Aleppo use code names for hospitals, which they say have been  systematically targeted by government airstrikes. Abu al-Ezz said they  do that “because we are afraid security forces will infiltrate their  medical network and target ambulances as they transfer patients from one  hospital to another.”In the video posted late Wednesday by the  Aleppo Media Center, a man is seen plucking the boy away from a chaotic  nighttime scene and carrying him inside the ambulance, looking dazed and  flat-eyed.The boy then runs his hand over his blood-covered face, looks at his hands and wipes them on the ambulance chair.Opposition activists said there were eight casualties overall from the air strike on Qaterji, among them five children.The image of Omran in the orange chair is reminiscent of the image of Aylan Kurdi,  the drowned Syrian boy whose body was found on a beach in Turkey and  came to encapsulate the horrific toll of Europe’s migrant crisis.