Stunned, bloodied face of 5 year-old Aleppo boy sums up the horror in Syria

The video shows a child after he was pulled from rubble in Aleppo, a city that has been devastated by constant bombardment.

A man carried the boy away from the rubble following a suspected air strike by Russia or Syria President Bashar Assad in the neighborhood of rebel-held Qaterji. He placed the child in an orange chair. The boy brushes his eye and face after the man walks away. He wipes the blood and debris on the chair.

It was not immediately clear when the video was taken. But the video, as well as the image from the aftermath of the bombing, circulated on social media Wednesday, a powerful reminder of the ongoing crisis in the Syrian city.

"This picture of a wounded Syrian boy captures just a fragment of the horrors of Aleppo," reads a Telegraph headline about the picture.

"Watch this video from Aleppo tonight," tweeted ABC correspondent Sophie McNeill. "And watch it again."

Editor's note: This video contains graphic footage

More than 250,000 people have died and millions have been displaced as the Syrian conflict has stretched on for years. And Aleppo has long been a key battleground between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and rebels.

Recently, the Syrian city has garnered international attention as the humanitarian crisis there has worsened. The flow of water, which serves millions of residents, was cut off earlier this month.

---

Here's more on the crisis in Aleppo, via The Washington Post's Louisa Loveluck and Hugh Naylor:

The western districts held by Syrian President Bashar Assad have not experienced the severe deprivations of areas in the east controlled by rebel forces. But after an array of rebels and extremists linked to al-Qaeda broke the brutal government siege of opposition neighborhoods last week, the rebels escalated the assault to besiege the government side. That has disrupted supplies of food and medicine to an area where more than a million people live, potentially testing loyalties of residents there to the embattled Syrian leader.

In response, rebels and opposition activists say, Assad's forces have responded with intensified bombings that have struck hospitals and involved munitions containing chlorine gas, a choking agent. Compounding the misery, U.N. officials said Tuesday that fighting had disabled Aleppo's main power plant, which had pumped water to 2 million people on both sides of the city.

"Prices are getting expensive, and businessmen are choosing not to sell what they have because they want to profit later when prices get even higher," said Hisham, a resident of a loyalist district in the city's west end who asked that his last name not be published because of concerns for his safety. Because of Tuesday's disruptions, he added, his neighborhood now totally depends on water that is trucked in.

---

Earlier this month, CNN's senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward appeared at a UN Security Council meeting and spoke about what she has seen and experienced in Aleppo.

"I have been covering conflict for 12 years," Ward said. "I have never experienced anything like Syria."