PUNJABMAILUSA.COM

Beirut, Aug 18 (Punjab Mail) – Photographer Mahmoud Rslan has taken many pictures of children killed in Syria’s war but none as haunting as the one showing Omran, four years old, dazed and covered in blood.
Shot after an air strike that hit a rebel-held district the battlefield northern city of Aleppo, the picture of Omran shows the brutality of Syria’s five-year conflict and the suffering of people trapped by fighting.
“I’ve taken a lot of pictures of children killed or wounded in the strikes that rain down daily,” Rslan told AFP on Thursday, the day after he captured the image that has gone viral on social network websites.
“Usually they are either unconscious or crying. But Omran was there, speechless, staring blankly, as if he did not quite understand what had happened to him,” he said by telephone.
A video filmed by the Aleppo Media Centre, a network of activists in the divided northern city, shows Omran sitting still in an ambulance, his face, arms and legs caked with blood and dust.
He stares into space, raises his arms to touch his bloodied forehead, looks at his hand then wipes it on the ambulance seat.