A young boy whose bloody and dust-caked image became a symbol of the plight of children in war-torn Syria has re-emerged in a television interview.

A photograph and video of a dazed Omran Daqneesh sitting in the back of a van after a Syrian government bombing attack in eastern Aleppo in August last year was widely shared across the internet.

His older brother, Ali, it believed to have died from his wounds after the attack.

He and his family have since appeared in a series of televised interviews on news channels supportive of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The latest interviews featuring the boy with shorter hair, have appeared on news outlets in Syria, Russia and Iran, all of whom support the Syrian regime.

In an interview with Russian channel Ruptly, Omran turns to the camera and tells the interviewer hesitantly: “I am Omran Daqneesh. I am 4 years old,” the New York Times reports

Omran’s father, Mohamad Kheir Daqneesh, was filmed in an interview on Iranian state television saying he feared for his son’s safety after the first images spread across the internet.

Omran’s father told the reporter his son was in good health in Aleppo – which is now under the control of government forces.

#omrandaqneesh pic.twitter.com/ZEpX2xibEP

— Khaled Iskef خالد اسكيف (@khalediskef) June 6, 2017

“I changed Omran’s name so no one will know him, and I changed his haircut, so no one will film him or recognize him,” Mr. Daqneesh told Hosein Mortada, a journalist with Iran’s Al-Alam News.

Valerie Szybala from the Syria Institute, an independent research organisation focused on Syria, told Reuters the family was unlikely to have been speaking freely.

“They are under government control now and this is a government that we know arrests and tortures anyone that speaks out against it … to me the situation seems to suggest this is probably coerced,” Ms Szybala was quoted as saying.

Rebel resistance in Aleppo ended last December after years of fighting and months of bitter siege and bombardment that culminated in a bloody retreat, as insurgents agreed to withdraw in a ceasefire.

Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 has killed an estimated 465,000 people.