Karim’s right eye is bright and flickers with curiosity about the world around him. But his left eye is scarred and seared shut.

He is three months old and will never see out of it again, after being injured in two separate government attacks on his besieged suburb near Damascus.

The Syrian infant was first wounded by a shred of shrapnel from a bomb dropped by Bashar al-Assad's forces in late October as they lay siege to eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area.

Karim's mother, Fadiya, was killed by the same bomb as she shopped with her child in what was once the neighbourhood fruit market; now made up of mainly empty stalls in a suburb home to 400,000 civilians.

Ten days later, after the baby was discharged from a makeshift hospital, shrapnel tore through the roof of his house, crushing his skull.

In recent days, Karim has become a symbol of eastern Ghouta's suffering after activists launched a campaign in support of the infant.