Boy Who Survived Airstrike Shows Us Everything Awful About War

Aleppo Media Centre

Omran Daqneesh has caught the world’s attention. Haunting imagery of the 5-year-old boy shows him dazed in the aftermath of a horrific bombing in Syria. Rescuers pulled him from the rubble, covered in ash and with a trail of blood on the side of his head.

In video released by The Daily Mail, and taken by the Aleppo Media Center, Daqneesh stares ahead blankly, only pausing to wipe away a smear of blood from the side of his forehead and aid workers race around him to treat the wounded.

His parents were missing after the strike but a local hospital was forced to release Daqneesh after treating him. However, one member of the local media told Time that, “Omran and his family are well now, all his family survived.”

Omran Daqneesh (Aleppo Media Centre)

More than 30,000 people have died in the city of Aleppo alone since the country’s civil war began in 2011. Some estimates place the total death count at above 400,000, including more than 10,000 children. Considered by many to be the world’s most dangerous city, Aleppo is the focal point of an ongoing bloody stalemate between the regime of Bashar al-Assad, rebel forces, ISIS and other extremist groups.

The Russian military has also gotten involved in the bombing. A recent report in the New York Times, the Russian and Syrian governments have been accused of using “napalm like” bombs on civilians. That comes on top of multiple reports accusing the Assad regime of using chemical bombs.

Meanwhile, 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh is still alive, but reportedly without his parents, and like countless others, trapped in a war that is no longer possible to ignore but still shows no signs of ending.