Twin baby brothers slaughtered by Russian bombs

Just hours before, Omar and Ammar Kandush had been sitting in the home they shared with their mother, father and four older siblings preparing to eat breakfast

But as they lie motionless on the rusted trolley, the twins – reportedly killed in a Russian airstrike last week – are now a truly shocking symbol of 25,000 innocent children who have paid the ultimate price in this brutal conflict. The images were released by activists in Aleppo.

Ammar on the right is still dressed in the soft white socks, nappy, and a stripy baby-grow. An orange baby's dummy lies next him, his downy dark hair sticking up; He could almost be asleep.

Omar, to the left, is wearing lovingly hand-knitted red booties, his nappy covered by navy blue trousers. Like his brother, he has a dummy - this time green - attached to his sweater, the same one he was wearing when his proud parents took a picture of their youngest son not long before.

A bib is also tucked under his chin, a haunting reminder of the breakfast the family was enjoying when the bomb struck.

But a closer look reveals a wound on the back of his forehead and the back of his head, and the blood which had streamed from his nose - just some of the terrible injuries which combined to kill the infant.

It is impossible for western journalists to enter rebel-held territory of the war-torn town but MailOnline contacted the twins' surviving family through activists at the Aleppo media centre.

Syrian photographer Aref Al Aref, who said he took the heart-stopping picture of the dead twins lying side by side on the hospital trolley, said he had tracked down the family from the ruins of their home in Aleppo's Al Sakkor district to the relatives nearby who had given them shelter.

The twins father apparently told him how his family was decimated when a rocket hit the house as they were about to eat breakfast.

He said: 'I was out of the house. When I came back I said "Hi" to the kids and their mother and asked her to prepare the food.

'After about three minutes the house was targeted by an air raid. I didn't exactly know what to do.

'All of them were under the rubble. White helmets [rescuers] were informed about the attacked place, we were evacuated.’

The twin's father, mother and older brothers were found alive but the infants and their six-year-old sister were killed.

'Born at the same time, died at the same time, will enter heaven at the same time,' wrote an activist who posted the first picture of the dead babies on to the internet.

'Martyrs from the Al Sakkor neighbourhood in a Russian raid this afternoon.'

Later photographer Aref told MailOnline of his own anguish when he learned the dead boys whose picture he had taken were twins.

He said: ‘I was shocked when the father of the boys in my photo told me they were twins.’

The photographs cannot be independently verified although MailOnline has made every effort to do so.

Omar and Ammar were not the only ones who died last Tuesday, February 16, when their home in the Al Sakkor district of the rebel-held city was destroyed by a Russian bombing raid - one of 2,000 launched on the city and surrounding countryside this month.

The twins, thought to be as young as five months old, lost their lives alongside their six-year-old sister Fatima - a smiling, curly-haired little girl who cuddled up to her beloved baby brothers in pictures taken before the raid.

Their older brothers, 10-year-old twins Mohamad and Ahmad, and Hussein, 12, were all pulled alive from the rubble by more than a dozen young men who sifted through the mangled remains for their home, the family revealed.

Their heads are wrapped in bandages, but they seem otherwise unscathed - lucky survivors of a five-year conflict which has claimed the lives of some 25,000 children, according the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

The list of dead children from this month alone is heart-breaking.

Among them, Bakr Al Bayrini, who died in an airstrike on his home in Kafr Naha, a town near Aleppo, last Friday.

A little earlier this month, five-month-old Eman Al Hamad was killed during an aerial missile attack on the Anadan, a town north of the city.

Yet there is hope among the hell of this roll call of the dead.

Amid the deadly and frequent bombing raids children are among the hundreds of civilians to have been pulled alive from the rubble of their destroyed homes by Aleppo volunteer rescue teams from the Civil Defence Directorate (CDD). 

Their 23 teams of volunteers working in the rebel-held areas of Aleppo and the surrounding area, using basic equipment, is the last hope for many.

Deputy director Mustafa told MailOnline: 'Last month [January] we saved 398 people from the bombing – 73 children, 59 women and 266 men.

'We also discovered 847 dead people in the rubble. This included 220 children, 159 women and 468 men.

'Every month the number of deaths are about the same.' 

Among the survivors were two girls pulled from the ruins of their home in Aleppo.

The youngster's haunting screams led rescuers to rubble where they lay, their parents and two siblings lying dead next to them.

Rescue leader Mustafa told MailOnline: 'One of the team heard the voice of a child crying from the rubble. We worked for a long time until we reached them. The work was very difficult. The search lasted more than an hour.

'At the beginning we found a dead man and a dead woman. When we got close to the sound of crying we found the two girls. They were both screaming.

'We had to remove very large rocks and building blocks. It was a long time before we could get the girls out.

Unfortunately underneath them we found two dead children.

'Their girl's father's name is Mahmood Alhilw, he died with his wife and two other children.' 

But their statements from inside the city have been dismissed by the Syrian President, who denies the allegations that the Russian Air Force killed any civilians – including Omar and Ammar – in their bombing raids on 'terrorist targets' last week.

Bashar Al Assad told Spain's El Pais newspaper: 'We don't have any evidence that the Russian attacked any civilian targets.

'They are very precise in their targets and they always attack, every day, the bases or the targets of the terrorists.'

Assad blamed the United States for the air raids on Aleppo and the surrounding areas last week in which an estimated 250 civilians died.

He told El Pais: 'Actually, it's the Americans who did this, who killed many civilians in the north-eastern part of Syria [Aleppo and the surrounding area], not the Russians.

'Not a single incident has happened regarding the civilians so far, because they don't attack in the cities; they attack mainly in the rural areas.'

The president described civilian casualties as 'sad' but added 'this is a problem in every war'.

President Assad said: 'Of course I feel very sad for every innocent civilian who dies in our conflict, but this is war.

'Every war is bad, you don't have a good war, because you always have civilians, and you have innocent people who are going to pay the price.'

The Syrian president went on to say that he wants to be remembered as 'the one who saved his country' and said he would stay in power for the next ten years to achieve his goal.

Asked by El Pais where he saw himself in ten years he replied: 'The most important thing is how I see my country, because I'm part of my country.

'So, in ten years, if I can save Syria as president – but that doesn't mean I'm still going to be president in ten years. I'm just talking about my vision of the ten years. If Syria is safe and sound, and I'm the one who saved his country – that's my job now, that's my duty.'

President Assad urged the five million refugees who had fled Syria to return telling them they had nothing to fear – unless they are terrorists. 

He said: 'Of course they can come. It is their right to come back, unless somebody is a terrorist or killer. 

'Some of them, and I think a good number of them, are government supporters who didn't leave because they're afraid of the government, but because of the standards of living that have deteriorated drastically during the last few years. 

'So of course they can come back without any action being taken against them by the government. We want people to come back to Syria.'

The Syrian government and the main umbrella for Syrian opposition and rebel groups announced on Tuesday they both conditionally accept a proposed U.S.-Russian cease fire that the international community hopes will bring them back to the negotiating table in Geneva for talks to end the war.

The U.N.-Russian agreement proposes that the cessation of hostilities start at midnight local time on Friday.

(www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3460058/Baby-brothers-slaughtered-Russian-bombs-ate-Heartbreaking-image-twins-blasted-death-days-ahead-ceasefire-Syria-s-brutal-civil-war.html#ixzz419z7FtGh )