(Previous Incident Code: R4674)

Six identified civilians, including two children and four women of which two were mother and daughter, were injured and several civilians were reportedly killed in an alleged artillery shelling with contested responsibility perpetrated by the Syrian regime military forces and/or Russian military and/or Iranian military in the city of Sarmin, east of Idlib, Syria, in the evening of Wednesday, the 3rd July 2024.

The first reports shared by the Syria Civil Defense on Twitter/X at 8:35 PM provided the figures of six injured civilians. Later that day, they updated the situation in a tweet saying the “evening moments turned into blood and destruction”, and posting a video where a young boy with a head or face injury was being brought to the ambulance and delivered to a hospital with the help of SCD volunteers. The same number of injuries was also reported by Sarmin Today.

Twitter/X user @Wolveri07681751 reported “injuries and martyrs”  after the bombardment of Sarmin, but the information about the death of civilians was not corroborated by other sources.

In another video shared by SCD, the injured 10-year-old daughter of 30-year-old Nour Al-Ahmad, Misk Al-Ahmad, called out for her mother, forgetting about her injuries and crying “I want my mother”. She was also asking paramedics about the condition of her injured mother, who was with her during the bombing of the city of Sarmin in the Idlib countryside today. A photo of Misk with a head wound sitting on a hospital bed was also shared by Sarmin Today and Maria Hassan.

Facebook user Rabie Diab posted a photograph of a shoe in the middle of a blood puddle writing: “The shoe is of no use due to the lack of a foot. One of the injuries involved a foot amputation.” However, it was not reported by the sources who suffered this terrible injury.

The Free Rebel account on Facebook shared the list of names of other civilians injured in the strike, namely, Ezz El-Din Abboud, a 10-year-old child, and three women – Salsabil Haj Latouf, 25 years old, Shaima Qadhanoun, 25 years old, and Nawal Al-Shater, 55 years old.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed the smoke around the area of the airstrike which took place near a mosque and near other already partly destroyed buildings.

The SCD and other sources, including Sham News, @Rian_almasri, @syr_television, and @khaled_mosle,  reported that the attack was launched by the Syrian regime forces. Twitter/X user @khaled_mosle claimed that the regime militia that carried out the strike was stationed in the city of Saraqib. Twitter/X user @moaaz_alabbas alleged that cluster missiles were used.

In a Facebook post, Maria Hassan stated that the Iranian militias were behind the strike while Free rebel account claimed the strike was carried out by the Russian and Iranian military. Facebook accounts News of Idlib and its countryside and Abu Amin as well as Twitter/X user @mzmgr941 alleged that a Russian reconnaissance aircraft accompanied artillery shelling.

Based on the different attribution of the strike by the sources, Airwars has graded both Strike Status and Civilian Harm Status as Contested.