Heartbreaking image shows lonely young child dazed and bloodied in an ambulance after airstrike in Syria

He sits silently staring, his face a smeared mask of blood and dirt. He seems barely aware of his wound until he drags a hand across his forehead, stares at the blood on his fingers and wipes it on the seat.

Omran was one of five children, as well as his mum and two men, injured in the attack on the ­Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, which is held by anti-Assad rebels.

The lad’s 11-year-old sister, who was also put in the ambulance, and two siblings aged one and six escaped without serious injury.

Anti-Assad activist Mahmoud Raslan, who shot the video, said: “We sent the younger children to the ambulance but the 11-year-old girl waited for her mother to be rescued. Her ankle was pinned beneath the rubble.”

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Eight died in the strike, including five children. Omran was taken to a hospital, which has itself been repeatedly bombed, and later released.

London-based surgeon David Nott, 59, has worked at the hospital as a volunteer. He said: “The boy was sleeping and suddenly his house collapsed with a bomb dropped on it. He was completely be­mused. He’d a significant scalp wound. That’s been treated and he’s recovering.”

Despite the horrifying footage, Omran is one of the more fortunate victims of a war that has killed 300,000 civilians. One in ten has died in Aleppo.

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The shocked reaction to the picture of Omran comes almost a year after a similar response to the harrowing photos of Aylan Kurdi, three. He drowned as his family fled the civil war.

The Sun has joined with Save the Children to help kids like Omran with our Aleppo appeal.

The charity wants a 48-hour ceasefire to allow food and water into the besieged city — and to bring the injured out.