The heartbreaking image of a little boy caught in the middle of Syria’s war reminds us all of the innocent victims

AN IMAGE of a little boy in the back of an ambulance suffering appalling injuries has shocked the world. WARNING: Graphic.

THIS is the heartbreaking image that reminds us all about the innocent victims, especially children, caught up in the middle of the Syrian war.

In a video provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), the boy sits in an ambulance covered in blood and dust, his feet dangling over the chair.

He is five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, according to London’s Telegraph, and was pulled out of a building hit by an air strike, in Aleppo, Syria.

Five-year-old Omran Daqneesh sits in an ambulance waiting for treatment. Picture: Aleppo Media Center via AP

Daqneesh after receiving treatment. Picture: Aleppo Media Center

He appears dazed and confused as he looks at his hand covered in the blood from his head. He is soon joined by two other children who were also pulled from rubble and then an older man.

A total of five children, one woman and two young men were injured in the blast according to an Aleppo doctor who asked not to be identified, The Telegraph reported.

Daqneesh and the others were taken to the M10 hospital, which has also been hit repeatedly by air strikes. Doctors treated his head injury, cleaned and him up and he was reportedly released later that night.

A girl walks along a deserted street in Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. Picture: REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

Doctors at the hospital said that around 12 other children all under the age of 15 were treated

More than 300,000 Syrians are estimated to have been killed in the country’s civil war while the exact number of civilians who have died in air strikes in Aleppo in recent weeks is unknown.

TENSIONS IGNITE

In a move that could reverberate across the Middle East, Iran confirmed that Russia is using its territory to launch air strikes in Syria even as a second wave of Moscow’s bombers flew out of the Islamic Republic to hit targets in the war-ravaged country.

The development represents a historical rapprochement with Russia that could rile US-allied Gulf neighbours, strengthen Syrian President Bashar Assad and impact the war against the Islamic State group.

Two bodies wrapped in cloth are laid out in front of a makeshift hospital in the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo, following air raids that targeted rebel-held areas in the northern city. Picture: AFP/THAER MOHAMMED

A resident of the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo, inspects the damage caused by air raids. Picture: AFP/THAER MOHAMMED

Russia first announced the strikes from near the Iranian city of Hamedan, 280 kilometres southwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. On Wednesday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said another wave of warplanes had departed from Iran, striking targets in eastern Syria.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, then gave the first government acknowledgment of the Russian operation. He said the Russians were using Iran’s Shahid Nojeh air base some 50 kilometres north of Hamedan, a secluded base where Russian warplanes were detected landing late last year.

Boroujerdi said the Russian Tu-22M3 bombers landed inside Iran only to refuel under the permission of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, a move that allowed them to carry a larger bomb load of more than 20 metric tons.

One of the many children injured in Syria. Ghina Ahmad Wadi rests at her home in the Syrian city of Madaya after being shot in the leg while buying medicine for her mother. Picture: AFP/Amnesty International

“There is no stationing of Russian forces in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Boroujerdi added.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended the use of Iranian military bases for air strikes in Syria, rejecting allegations that it could be a violation of U.N. resolutions prohibiting the supply, sale and transfer of combat aircraft to Iran.

“In the case we’re discussing there has been no supply, sale or transfer of warplanes to Iran,” Lavrov told a news conference. “The Russian air force uses these warplanes with Iran’s approval in order to take part in the counter-terrorism operation” in Syria.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Russia was “exacerbating what is already a very dangerous situation ... by using Iranian air bases as a way to carry out more intensive bombing runs that continue to hit civilian populations.”

A Syrian refugee child sleeps on his father's arms while waiting at a resting point to board a bus in Greece. One of the lucky children who escaped Syria. Picture: AP/Muhammed Muheisen

On Wednesday, presumed Russian or Syrian government air strikes on the rebel-held city of Idlib in the northwest killed 17 people and wounded at least 30 others, the Civil Defence branch for the province reported. A video posted on the group’s website showed rescue workers pulling bodies from wreckage along a heavily damaged street. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the strikes, saying dozens of civilians were killed and wounded. Also Wednesday, rebel rocket rounds killed 10 civilians and wounded nine in a government-controlled district of the city of Aleppo, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said.

For Iran, allowing Russia to launch strikes from inside the country is likely to prove unpopular.