Syria doctors 'shocked by the shock' over 'everyday' bloodied child photo

It was pretty hard not to.

The video of the dusty, confused child led news bulletins and was on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a powerful symbol of the suffering in Syria.

GRAPHIC WARNING: Images and details in this story may disturb some readers.

For nearly the past two months, I have been getting daily messages from doctors working inside rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

In so many ways, they have been totally cut off from the rest of the world.

There is no safe way in or out of the city right now. It is besieged on all sides by Syrian Government forces.

Regime helicopters and Russian and Syrian warplanes rule the skies.

Airstrikes are a deadly, daily occurrence.

International Red Cross president Peter Maurer described Aleppo this week: "No-one and nowhere is safe. Shell-fire is constant."

"People live in a state of fear. The scale of the suffering is immense," he said.

"This is beyond doubt one of the most devastating urban conflicts in modern times."

The siege has led to a critical shortage of food and fuel.

Images of maimed, killed children sent near-daily

But in Aleppo, they do have satellite internet.

And from early in the morning to throughout the night, the messages keep coming.

Through a WhatsApp group, the doctors send me and a bunch of other reporters a continuous stream of updates.

They tell us when the airstrikes begin and when they can hear the bombs start falling.

They send videos of mad, crowded emergency rooms, where the floor is covered in blood and there are just not enough beds to accommodate the tens of people who have been injured in the latest strike.

The send pictures of babies, children and their parents maimed and killed on a near-daily basis.

Most are too graphic for any Western media outlet to publish.

But on Wednesday night, one of the pictures they sent stood out — a little dusty boy sitting shocked in the back of an ambulance.

The doctors said his name was Omran and he was five years old.

They sent another photo of him with his head all bandaged. They told us they treated him for a head injury.

Video then emerged of Omran as he sat blinking in the back of that ambulance, wiping his little pudgy hand on his bleeding head and then looking down at the blood in confusion and wonder.

I put it up on Twitter, and within a few hours, it was retweeted over 10,000 times.

The video we put on the ABC Facebook page has been viewed more than 14 million times.

I have received countless emails and messages of people from all over the world, who tell me they are distraught and thinking of Omran.

One email said: "I've asked my boss if I can work overtime so I can send my overtime money to Omran. Can you help me and make sure it's given to him?"

"My heart is broken as soon as I saw his little face. My tears have not stopped," Paul from London wrote.

'I am shocked by the shock'

The doctors inside Aleppo and their colleagues supporting them outside are still wrapping their heads around the way Omran's picture went viral.

"These pictures we are seeing dozens of them everyday. Frankly … I am shocked by the shock," said Dr Zaher Sahloul, chair of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a US-based NGO that helps fund the doctors inside besieged Aleppo.

He runs the WhatsApp messaging group and has seen this phenomenon before. He said it never lasts.

"We have seen many pictures in this Syria crisis that went viral, as they say," he said.

"Pictures of the children in Madaya who starved to death, [the] picture of Aylan Kurdi who drowned in the [Mediterranean].

"Our reaction in general is we look at these pictures. We tweet about them, we retweet, maybe we write a blog or something.

"We cry, and then we move on and turn away from Syria."

Dr Sahloul said Syrian children are "not dolls to cry over and then move on".

He said if you were upset by the video, then do something about it.

"What is happening in Syria is the worst humanitarian crisis in our lifetime collectively," he said.

"So whether you live in Australia or whether you live in United States, you have a responsibility to end this crisis."

'We know where these bombs are coming from'

Dr Sahloul said he wanted people to lobby their politicians for a no-fly zone in Syria and humanitarian corridors for civilians.

"This is all doable and this is all done in previous crisis," he said.

"I think advocacy is the key, and our policy makers have to feel the heat."

The Syria Campaign's campaign director James Sadri said: "I think after five years of conflict, people find it easier to just think about it as some kind of abstract thing — as war that just happens to some unfortunate people in another part of the world.

"And perhaps they don't want to name who it is, because that might actually take them a step closer to doing something about it.

"Far too many people are looking at this picture of Omran and going: 'Oh poor boy, poor guy, poor family, isn't war terrible.'

"And they are not focusing on the fact that we know where these bombs are coming from."

Mr Sadri said not enough pressure was being exerted on the Syrian regime and its ally Russia to stop airstrikes on civilians.

"We know which helicopters and which planes are dropping them," he said.

"The vast majority of the violence is being conducted by the Syrian Government of Bashar al-Assad and its allies the Russian Government.

"So what are we actually going to do to put pressure on them to stop this war? That's what we should be asking.

"We have four out of the five permanent Security Council members flying in Syrian airspace today, and none of them are doing anything to stop these attacks."

He said he cannot bare to hear commentators say, after five years of war in Syria, it is just too late to try and make a difference.

"I mean I'm in contact with people on the ground in Syria and those people don't have the luxury to say: 'Oh it's too late, oh there's nothing we can do.'

"There are hundreds of attacks everyday in Syria.

"To say that it's too late for that family that's going to get bombed tomorrow that might not be as lucky as Omran is absolutely unacceptable.

"We have to do something about it."