(Previous Incident Code: R4669)

Shortly before 8:26 PM on Sunday, April 14th, 2024, three civilians were reportedly injured by an alleged Russian and/or Syrian regime and/or Iranian artillery strike that struck residential areas in the city of Sarmin, to the east of Idlib, Syria. The majority of sources reported that the injured civilians were children.

The names of those injured were nine-year-old boy Sa’ed Mohamed Wazzaz, nine-year-old boy Abdo Mahmoud Dibo, and his sister, Sawsan Mahmoud Dibo. Sa’ed Mohamed Wazzaz was reportedly from the city of Sarmin, whilst Abdo Mahmoud Dibo and Sawsan Mahmoud Dibo were from Saraqib. A Facebook post by user “Sarmin We Love You” detailed this alongside the images of two small children sitting on hospital beds. Another Facebook post by user Nabil Al-Othman provided the ages of Sa’ed Mohamed Wazzaz and Abdo Mahmoud Dibo as being nine years old, in addition to the same photographic evidence.

Twitter user @SyriaCivildefe reported that “A boy and a girl, two siblings, were lightly injured”. Other social media sources provided a range of civilians injured which stands between one and three. @SyriaCivilDefe initially reported that one child was injured but later updated the toll to “a boy and a girl”. @Qasemqt also reported on the injury of a nine-year-old child but further added the injury of “two other men” which was not consistently present amongst other sources reporting.

A substantial number of posts across Twitter and Facebook suggested that the source of the artillery shelling originated from Russian forces and Iranian militias, while others attributed the shelling to the Syrian regime forces, with “Idlib portal” specifying that the regime’s militias “stationed at the surrounding checkpoints” were responsible.