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Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Code: R4617)
Shortly before 8:55 AM on Sunday, October 29, 2023, a 17-year-old-girl was injured by artillery shelling with contested responsibility allegedly perpetrated by Syrian regime forces and/or Russian military and/or Iranian military while she was harvesting olives with her family on the outskirts of Kansafra, in the southern countryside of Idlib, Syria.
Twitter/X user @Ahmad_1alshble was the first to report the incident at 7:22 AM, informing about the injury of a woman. At 11:11 AM the Syrian Civil Defence wrote on its Twitter/X account that a 17-year-old girl was “seriously injured” and had to be taken to the Jericho (Ariha) hospital for treatment, sharing a blurred picture of the victim in an ambulance. There were no reports of physical injuries concerning other members of her family present at the time of the incident.
A tweet by Twitter/X user “Snarling of the Syrian revolution” (@mzmgr941) identified the belligerents as Russian and Iranian military. He also added that more than 10 Russian and Iranian reconnaissance planes were in the sky at the time of the incident.
The other sources, including the Syrian Civil Defence, attributed the artillery strike to the Syrian regime forces. Therefore, Airwars has graded both Strike Status and Civilian Harm Status as Contested.
Assessment Updates
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Kansafra (كنصفرة), for which the generic coordinates are: 35.658233, 36.484942. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.