Omran Daqneesh: Is he just a symbol for the war in Syria?

The picture of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, who’s family’s house got hit by a devastating air strike on Wednesday went viral the day after when literally hundreds of daily newspapers around the world printed the iconic image on their front cover and online news portals used it as a frontispiece. The little injured and traumatized boy was called a shocking “symbol” of the war in Syria. Others called him an example for the merciless Assad and Putin aerial war against the civilian population of Syria.

I myself was asked during a political talk show on al-Hurra TV on Thursday night, if the picture would change anything or was just "another symbol" of the ruthless campaign by the Russian and Assad regime air force. What I replied was that it was another symbol of global inaction, which - like little dead Aylan on a Turkish beach almost a year ago - will be forgotten in just a couple of days, unfortunately. Today I regret this answer.

As political commentators on the war in Syria, we tend to abstract what we see on the ground to put things "in the larger context". We do this in good faith and without the intention to sweep things under the mat. But what we unwittingly neglect by doing this are the personal destinies of the people and groups we report on.

The air strike on the Daqneesh family’s house - just as all other air strikes on civilians - wasn’t just a war crime by the Assad and/or Russian air force. It also resulted in the destruction of a family, an attack on innocent individuals and the most severe intrusion into personal lives one could imagine.

When we saw Omran and his sister sitting in the ambulance, we didn’t (only!) see symbols, not even “merely“ unacceptable war crimes by the air forces, targeting civilians in Syria. We saw an 11-year-old innocent girl and a 3-year-old innocent boy, bleeding, shocked and utterly unable to understand who attacked their flat to erase them from earth. On Saturday, the news emerged that Ali, the 10-year-old brother of Omran did not survive the attack on his family and other innocents. But what we need to understand - despite half a million deaths in the war in Syria - is that he is not “just another kid“ to be killed by Putin and Assad. He was a (little) man of flesh and blood.

The Assad regime, the Russian air forces and - to a much smaller extent - other parties kill innocents in Syria day in, day out. Nonetheless, we must be careful to not follow the narrative of those, fueling the conflict. Those killed are not just "victims", not just "numbers" and not just "symbols" of war or even the predominately guilt of one side. Just like a murdered person in Germany, France or the US is not only "a crime victim" or a digit in the crime statics, Omran Daqneesh, his family and all other civilian victims of the war in Syria are not just "symbols of a brutal war" but humans who took their terminate breath and leave their loved ones, mourning for them forever.

If we accept this truth, our very own instincts will possibly tell us - and hopefully also our politicians - what must be done to end the destruction of families and termination of human lives.

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Julian Röpcke is a newspaper editor and political commentator, based in the German capital, Berlin. With a degree in Political Geography and Sociology, Mr. Röpcke started analyzing geopolitical conflicts after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He covered the “Arab Spring” as well as the evolving conflicts in Syria and Ukraine from their very beginning. Julian Röpcke works for BILD, the largest newspaper and leading online news portal in Germany (@JulianRoepcke).