A heartbreaking video from Syria shows two dust-covered boys clinging to each other and sobbing after learning their brother was killed in an airstrike.
The video released by Aleppo Media Center is the latest reminder of the devastating toll the ongoing civil war in Syria is having on children in the war-torn country.
At least 15 people, including women and children, were killed after two barrel bombs were dropped on a neighbourhood in Aleppo, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
READ MORE: Picture of Syrian boy pulled from rubble shows haunting image of civil war
The heart-wrenching video shows the brothers hugging and crying loudly as they mourn their sibling.
“My brother is gone,” says one of the boys, according to a translation by CNN.
Amnesty International says barrel bombs are a common tactic the Syrian regime used to kill indiscriminately to create “sheer terror and unbearable suffering.” The bombs are crude but deadly weapons, according to Amnesty, that are fashioned out of oil barrels, fuel tanks or gas cylinders and packed with explosives, fuel, and metal fragments which are then dropped from helicopters and planes.
READ MORE: Image of bloody Syrian boy pulled from rubble in Aleppo rattles aunt of Alan Kurdi
The strikes came amid talks between the U.S. and Russia for a ceasefire in the Syria conflict which has killed nearly 500,000 people and forced millions from their homes.
The video comes a week after Syrian opposition activists released haunting photographs of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh, sitting in an orange chair inside an ambulance covered in dust and with blood on his face following an airstrike.
It was later reported that Omran’s 10-year-old brother, Ali, had died from injuries sustained in the attack.
The image of Omran’s stunned face was shared on social media and highlights the plight of Syrian children caught in the fighting.
The anguished global response to the images are also reminiscent of the pictures of Alan Kurdi, the toddler whose body was found dead on a beach in Turkey that came to encapsulate the nightmare of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Alan Kurdi’s aunt Tima Kurdi said the young boy’s death raised the profile of the war in Syria but did amount to change.
“He was the wake-up call to the four or five years of silence,” Kurdi told the Canadian Press. “He was the message to wake up the people around the world. And he did, for a few months. And then everybody went back to business.”
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