(Previous Incident Codes: R2336RS2485)

Nine civilians, including four women and four children, were killed and others were wounded in alleged Russian or regime airstrikes against the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib on September 21, 2017.

The civilians that were killed were from the same family, with Smart News Agency reporting that they were a mother, father, and child. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights reported that they were three children and two women.

VDC however, listed two separate families as victims, including five members the of al-Mazbouh family and three from the al-Munzir family.

SN4HR reported that “at least 3 civilians (a girl and her parents), IDPs from Khattab town in Hama governorate northwestern suburbs, killed in suspected Russian warplanes missiles fired on al Gharbi neighborhood”.

The family had been internally displaced from the town of Khattab in Hama. A report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published the day after the incident increased the number of killed to nine.

The majority of sources that reported on the incident, including Smart News Agency and Shaam Network, reported that Russian planes were responsible for carrying out the airstrikes. Khan Sheikhan Today did not include who was to blame for the airstrikes.

However the journalist Mohammad salom al abd said that the regime had carried out a strike on Khan Sheikhoun, while the White Helmets and Wissal TV blamed regime strikes for the death of five civilians.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least ten airstrikes struck areas around the city of Khan Sheikhoun and the roads that lead to it, causing damage to the infrastructure of the city. The airstrikes were part of a campaign against the cities and towns of rural Idlib that had been going on for three days. Civil Defense teams removed the victims of the airstrikes from the rubble.