Photo of blood-covered Syrian boy fake: Assad
Postmedia Network
First posted: Friday, October 21, 2016 07:52 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, October 21, 2016 08:16 PM EDT
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told
Swiss media the photo of a young boy covered in blood sitting by himself in an ambulance that went viral this summer was a fake.
The leader was asked about the photo during an interview in which he said fighting “terrorists” in Aleppo was the only way of “protecting civilians.”. He also denied his government bombing hospitals and the use of chemical weapons.
"This is a forged picture and not a real one," he told the reporter. "I'm not attacking people; I'm defending the people," he said.
The boy in the photo was five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, who was rescued after an alleged Russian airstrike - the entire ordeal being caught on video. A surgeon helping him at the time
told ABC News that Daqneesh was “scared and dazed...he wasn't crying at all. It seemed like he had been asleep when it happened."
The boy escaped with only scalp wounds. His brother wasn’t so lucky. His 10-year-old brother died of injuries suffered in the same airstrike.
Photo of blood-covered Syrian boy fake: Assad | World | News | Toronto Sun