It was the viral photo that put an innocent face on the relentless carnage of the Syrian war.
Omran Daqneesh, then 5, sits in a volunteer ambulance after he was pulled alive from the rubble of a building hit by airstrikes in rebel-held Aleppo. He’s tiny face, smeared in a thick layer of masonry dust and dried blood, stares dazed and confused past the camera.
Now — almost a year after the haunting image forced the world to stop and pay attention to the deadliest war of our time — a series of new photos have emerged.
The images were posted on the social media account of pro-Syrian government television presenter, Kinana Alloush. They appear to show the young boy physically unscathed and living with his family in Aleppo, which has since been reclaimed by Assad’s forces.
Alloush – a reporter who once posted a selfie with the corpses of rebel fighters – shared a short message alongside the images.
“The child Omran, those who tried to shed Syrian blood mislead the news that he was hit by the Syrian Arab Army,” she wrote. “Here he now lives in the Syrian state with its army, its leader and its people.”
Thankfully, the little boy appears physically unscathed by the shocking airstrike. Image via Facebook/Kinana Alloush.
Omran Daqneesh is pictured with pro-Syrian government television presenter, Kinana Alloush. Image via Facebook/Kinana Alloush.
Sadly, Daqneesh’s brother died just days after the iconic image was taken due to wounds sustained from the same airstrike.
It is believed Ali, 10, was out on the street playing when the strike occurred and photo-journalist Mahmoud Raslan, who took the photo of Omran, said his older brother was badly injured by a collapsed wall.
Kareem Shaheen, a Middle East reporter for The Guardian broke the news on Twitter:
Syrian activist Kenan Rahmani wrote of the boy’s death on a Facebook and poignantly said that while Omran became the “global symbol of Aleppo’s suffering” his brother “Ali is the suffering itself.”
Rahmani wrote: “Ali is the suffering itself, that which Omran tried to convey to us. Ali is the utter loss of everything. Ali is Syria as Syrians know it.
“Ali is the reality: that no story in Syria has a happy ending.”
