Omran’s brother dies from wounds
The rescue of 5-year old Omran Daqneesh, pulled from the rubble of his bombed-out Aleppo, Syria, home last week, was broadcast around the world, dominating front pages and drawing tears from television anchors.
For many, his image became a symbol, the human cost of Syria’s devastating war illustrated by a bloodied face and mop of hair, smothered in the dust of what once stood as his bedroom.
‘‘This is Omran,’’ CNN’S Kate Bolduan said last week, her voice breaking as she introduced the footage. ‘‘He’s alive. We wanted you to know.’’
Less widely shared was the story’s devastating postscript. On Saturday, activists said, Omran’s 10-year-old brother, Ali, died from wounds sustained in the same airstrike, launched by forces allied to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The muted response underscored the ephemeral nature of a story that goes ‘‘viral’’ and frustrated Syrian doctors and activists who had hoped the flood of media attention might translate into concrete action aimed at bringing their war to an end.
‘‘Omran became the ‘global symbol of Aleppo’s suffering’ but to most people he is just that – a symbol,’’ wrote Kenan Rahmani, a Syrian activist based in Washington. ‘‘Ali is the reality: That no story in Syria has a happy ending.’’
As Ali’s father received mourners Saturday at a temporary home in east Aleppo, doctors and activists shared images of more children – ‘‘the other Omrans’’ – on an online chat group:
Abdullah, an 11-year-old, was said to have been killed hours before the Daqneesh family’s rescue, hit by an airstrike as he walked past a local swimming pool.
Aisal Hajar, 2, and Faisal Barakat, 6, were shown in an Aleppo hospital, apparently the victims of attacks involving Russian-made cluster munitions.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, more than 300 civilians have been killed in Aleppo since July 31 when a coalition of rebel groups broke a government siege of districts under its control.
The battle for the city, divided between rebels in the east and government forces in the west, has become one of the most important and destructive of Syria’s five-year war. It was not immediately clear whether Ali’s death had been counted in the 168 civilians that the observatory said had been killed by Russian or regime airstrikes. Another 165 – among them 49 children – have also died after opposition shelling on the city’s government-held western districts.
‘‘Empathy and outrage must be matched by action,’’ said Unicef executive director Anthony Lake. ‘‘Children of Omran’s age in Syria have known nothing but the horror of this war waged by adults. We all should demand that those same adults bring an end to the nightmare.’’