Russia yesterday denied that one of its air raids hit a dazed and bloodied Syrian boy whose heart-wrenching photograph has drawn worldwide attention.
The Russian Ministry of Defense issued an official denial that it carried out a strike on eastern Aleppo on Wednesday evening when the images of Omran Daqneesh were taken.
There are differing reports on whether the boy is four or five years old.
Photo: EPA / Aleppo Media Center
“The Russian planes operating in Syria never work on targets that are inside settled areas,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
The photographer who shot the video for Aleppo Media Center, a network of activists, said that he took the images after an airstrike on Wednesday night hit the Qaterji neighborhood in eastern Aleppo.
Konashenkov said Qaterji was particularly out of bounds for Russian strikes because it adjoins two of the humanitarian corridors Moscow has opened for residents to flee.
Photo: Reuters
He branded Western media reports on Omran as a “cynical exploitation” of the tragic situation in eastern Aleppo and “cliched anti-Russian propaganda.”
He suggested the attack could have been carried out by rebels in Aleppo using homemade rockets to target roads close to the humanitarian corridors to undermine Russia’s efforts.
However, he also suggested that the area where Omran was might not have been bombed at all, citing footage of unbroken windows.
“If a strike really did take place,” it was not an aerial strike, but either a gas cylinder “used in large quantities there by terrorists” or a mortar shell, he said.
In the video posted by the center, a man was seen carrying Omran away from the chaotic nighttime scene and into an ambulance. Looking dazed, the boy ran his hands over his blood-covered face, then wiped them on the orange ambulance chair.
Omran was taken to a hospital, known as “M10,” on Wednesday night, physician Osama Abu al-Ezz said, adding that he suffered head wounds, but no brain injury and was later discharged.
A nurse who treated him said “he was in a daze.”
“It was as if he was asleep. Not unconscious, but traumatized — lost,” Mahmoud Abu Rajab said.
On Thursday, the ministry said it was ready to back a UN call for weekly ceasefires for Aleppo.
Konashenkov said Russia would back the initiative on condition the aid convoys travel to both rebel-controlled and government-held parts of the city.
In Washington, US Department of State spokesman John Kirby said that while the US would welcome any “genuine effort to stop the bombing, even if it is just for 48 hours, that’s not the long-term answer.”
“It is important for Russia to work with us ... to try to come to an agreement on the technicalities of these proposals, which if ... fully implemented in good faith, could allow the cessation of hostilities to be expanded across the country,” Kirby said.
In related news, Syrian Kurdish militia have seized several positions from government forces in the divided city of Hasaka, a Kurdish official said yesterday, expanding their control in one of the heaviest clashes yet between Kurdish groups and the government.
Additional reporting by AP and Reuters
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