ALEPPO, Syria — The doctor who treated Ali Daqneesh, the brother of the Syrian boy whose image after an air strike shocked the world, explained why they were unable to save him.
Ten-year-old Ali was wounded in Wednesday’s air strike (August 17) in Aleppo.
A still photograph of Ali from his hospital bed shortly before his death has been released.
The doctor who treated Ali said the boy had suffered serious injuries as he had not been pulled out of the rubble immediately as his younger brother was.
“Of course the child had many injuries. Breaks in the upper torso and ribs. The right lung had collapsed. His general condition was unwell because he stayed below the rubble for a long time…His heart stopped three times and we revived him three times but unfortunately he died in the end,” said the doctor, who identified himself as Abdelrasool.
Ali’s younger brother, five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, was pictured in the back of an ambulance after being pulled from the rubble, with an expression of incomprehension on his dust- and blood-caked face.
The video and pictures were widely circulated online and in the media, refocusing public opinion on Syria’s five-year-old civil war and the plight of civilians, particularly in Aleppo. (Reuters)