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The five-year-old toddler from Syria who caught the attention of the world this week after he was photographed sitting in the back of an ambulance, covered in dust and blood, is on the mend.
Omran Daqneesh and his two brothers and sister were fast asleep on Wednesday night when their house came under fire during the Russian bombardment of Aleppo.
The apartment complex was partly destroyed, and children and other injured people had to be removed from the rubble.
A visibly shocked and traumatised Omran sat in the back of the ambulance in silence, wiping blood off his head. One of his brothers and his sister were also put in the ambulance and taken to hospital.
A video that Imtiaz Sooliman from the disaster relief organisation Gift of the Givers obtained from doctors in Syria, shows the three toddlers sitting next to one another in consulting rooms, being attended to by a doctor.
All around them lie people with dire injuries, sustained in the same bombardment.
“Omran sustained a fracture to the skull, but it is not serious. His brother and sister received injuries from shrapnel. All three were, however, discharged the next day. They had to make room for those that had been critically injured,” a doctor in Syria informed Sooliman in a message.
“Aleppo is currently the most dangerous place in the world. The people who live there are trapped because all the borders have been closed by President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces. They can’t go anywhere and no relief aid can get to them. The only road to the city gets bombed by Russian aircraft as soon as a truck moves on it,” said Sooliman.
Gift of the Givers operates a hospital in Syria, close to the Turkish border. The hospital also sustained minor damage during a bombing last year.
“Not a single hospital in Aleppo remains standing. Basement floors and other buildings are currently being used after hospitals were targeted by bombers over the past few months. The food and medicine are nearly finished. We are currently doing everything in our power to see if we can at least ensure that certain emergency supplies get through to the doctors,” said Sooliman.
According to the doctors that treated Omran, the family’s apartment collapsed completely after the children were saved. They were forced to seek shelter with a family member.
The human tragedy in Syria has been put back in the spotlight by the photo of Omran.
The story has elicited a similar global reaction to that of Alan Kurdi, also a small Syrian child, who drowned and was found on the Turkish coast.
More than 250 000 people have died in the Syrian civil war, with al-Assad crushing all dissent against him and his regime with Russian aid.
* Update: Omran's brother Ali (10) died of wounds sustained during the attack on their home.
