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 air strikes in Aleppo has been widely circulated on social media, causing upset and condemnation over the harrowing reality of Syria’s five-year war.

Aleppo, split into rebel- and government-controlled areas, has become the focus of fighting in Syria’s five-year conflict.

Rebel-held areas are suffering heavy air strikes daily as pro-government forces try to retake territory lost to rebels two weeks ago in the southwest of Aleppo.

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.

Aleppo-based freelance photographer Mohammed Raslan Abu Sheikh, who was at the scene, said civilian rescuers and aid workers were elated as Omran was pulled out of the rubble alive with the rest of his family of six.

“He was in a state of shock, not even crying, he made us cry while he himself was silent, just watching us,” Abu Sheikh told Reuters.

Last year, international sympathy for victims of Syria’s war was heightened by a photo of a drowned 3-year-old refugee from Syria, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish tourist beach. The image of Aylan, who died when a people smugglers’ boat taking his family and other refugees to a nearby Greek island capsized, swept across social media and was retweeted thousands of times.

This is the text of a letter that was sent into the Times today after the shocking pictures of young Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish shore with his small shoes on, as though he was just resting.

Dear Sir,

The pictures of the young Aylan Kurdi washed up on the shores of Bodrum are a shameful indictment of the lack of co-ordinated action by the European Union when the whole purpose of the European Union was to co-ordinate a joint response to issues affecting European states. This country has a proud heritage of providing shelter to refugees, including the Huguenots, Jewish communities, the Ugandan Asians and Kurdish refugees, to name just a few.

The Prime Minister recently talked about British values. It is precisely the value of protecting human life and human rights that the rest of the world attaches to us as a country and by inaction and the closing of borders at a time of need, we are tarnishing the most beautiful of values on the assumption that we cannot cope. Yet, we are one of the wealthiest nations of the world and what use is such wealth when some in the world do not know where their next meal is coming from.

We ask for compassion and care at this time of need instead of rhetoric and inaction.

Yours sincerely,

Fiyaz Mughal, Director – Faith Matters,
Natan Levy, Chair – Jewish Social Action Forum,
Mark Lewis, Partner, Legal Specialist,
Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger,
Dr Musharraf Hussain, Chief Imam – Karimia Institute,
Dr Imam Mamadou Bocoum,
Murad Qureshi, Labour London Assembly Member,
Yusuf Hanza, Chair – Noor-Ul-Islam mosque,
Judge Laurence Brass,
Esmond Rosen, Chair – Barnet Multi-faith Forum
Rev Rana Khan – Patron of Faith Matters