His face bloodied and completely covered in dust, the little boy sits quietly, staring ahead, dazed and shocked after an apparent air strike in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
Alone in an ambulance, the boy — identified by doctors as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh — tries to wipe the blood off his head, unaware of the injury he has sustained.
Video of children being pulled from the rubble of a building hit by airstrikes in Aleppo has been widely circulated on social media, causing upset and condemnation over the harrowing reality of Syria’s five-year war.
The video was shot on Wednesday in the rebel-held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of the city.
It shows an aid worker carrying the little boy out of a building and placing him on a seat inside an ambulance, before rushing back out to the bombed-out scene. The boy sits alone, stunned, before two more children are brought into the vehicle. A man with blood on his face then joins them.
Omran was rescued along with his three siblings, ages 1, 6, and 11, and his mother and father from the rubble of their partially destroyed apartment building. None sustained major injuries, but the building collapsed one hour after the family was rescued. A second building, next to theirs, was also heavily damaged. Rescue workers worked until 5am to retrieve a final victim from the rubble. The victim, who was not identified, survived.