The photograph of a 5-year-old Syrian boy sitting in an ambulance went viral and introduced the world to a new perspective on war. The boy, Omran Deqneesh, experienced the terror of war in the city of Aleppo when his house was destroyed by an airstrike, one believed to be carried out by the Syrian regime and Russia. Omran and his family survived the attack, becoming one of many families whose lives have been affected by the country’s civil war. In Aleppo alone, the civil war has cost the city thousands of lives, many of those being children; more than 18,000 civilians have lost their lives in Aleppo from March 2011 to this year.
Believed to be in shock in the picture, Omran is sitting quietly in the ambulance waiting for help, with a look in his eye that has been discussed. Is he dazed? Scared? Confused? The very nature of his innocence shows in this picture, and it brings to thought the very effect that war has on everyone, especially a child.
Mustafa, a cameraman with the Aleppo Media Center, spoke to CNN about Omran and many others like him: “Every day we cover these massacres and these war crimes in Aleppo. When we go to the places that have been bombed, regime planes circle around and bomb it again to kill rescue workers that are helping civilians. They kill these people who are trying to rescue people,” said Chandrika Narayan.
Despite the high risk and danger of Aleppo, the population remains at around two million people. Once known as Syria’s largest city, Aleppo is now divided into government and rebel-held areas. There are questions about why people would continue to live in such a dangerous city, but that is not what we need to ask. We need to focus on one idea, and that is to stop the violence in Aleppo. The United Nations is working towards a solution by seeking to provide humanitarian aid and task forces.
However, help has not arrived soon enough and is effecting the way Syria views the rest of the world. Jan Eliasson, the UN’s deputy secretary-general, hopes that Omran’s story with help the world see just what is happening in Syria: “I think the world has failed the Syrian people…I think this is an illustration of the huge tragedy that the Syrian people are going through. We talk about this often as being a nightmare. This is worse than a nightmare because you wake up from a nightmare. But in Syria they wake up to constant nightmares,” said Narayan. Seeing Syria as one of the most frustrating conflicts in the world, Eliasson then calls for this war to end.
Omran is but one child of thousands who are hurt by war every day, even if we don’t hear about every incident very often. There are so many incidents and attacks nowadays, that we don’t often learn about each individual one. In fact, we only hear about them if they are covered by the news. This picture alone, however, is a strong reminder that everyone matters; every life is important. We may not always hear about the casualties, but we need to remain aware of what is happening in our world.
Omran’s story and the history behind the violence proves that there is so much more than what we may see or understand. In fact, it took a viral photograph of a bloodied young boy to really make us realize just how terrifying war is; the world finally looked at a young boy and saw the pain and terror that many other families in Omran’s situation face every day. We can’t do much as individuals to end the war ourselves, but we can be aware that the world is different.
