Syrian children becoming the face of bloody civil war
ALEPPO, Syria -- For the four years this young boy has been on this earth, he has known nothing but war.
It is the photo seen around the world, of a little boy in Syria, covered in dirt and blood, staring blankly ahead.
He has become the face of Syria’s civil war, which has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, 41,000 of them children.
For a four-year-old who just survived an airstrike, you may think that Omran Daqneesh seems unnaturally calm, but in the numbing violence of Aleppo, there is no childhood.
Omran had only minor head injuries, and his brother, two sisters and parents all survived the strike.
Many other children have been killed and maimed -- as the Syrian regime and its backers in Russia try to claw back control of the city.
Another little boy was pulled from the rubble two days ago -- bloodied, but apparently, still alive.
“God is great,” shouted his rescuers, but the truth is, Aleppo is God forsaken.
Another video appears to show a boy who has just lost his brother in an airstrike.
“Take me instead of him,” he cries. Another child robbed of his innocence.
The United States is trying to avoid being drawn deeper into this conflict. In the meantime, the Syrian regime is bombing its own people with near impunity.
They’ve even targeted hospitals.
Security camera video shows a strike on Omar Ben Abdul Aziz Hospital in Aleppo last month.
Last week, 15 Syrian doctors still working in rebel-held Aleppo, wrote a letter to President Obama -- telling him about “four newborn babies” who they said were “suffocated to death after a blast cut the oxygen supply to their incubators.”
Those doctors also demanded that America do more to stop the carnage.
