(Previous Incident Codes: R3821RS4046)

One civilian was reported killed and two members of Syrian Civil Defense injured in the second of two consecutive alleged Russian airstrikes on Ma’aret al-Nu’man, Idlib, on August 18th, 2019.

Shaam News reported that, following a previous airstrike, “when civil defense teams arrived at the site to evacuate the wounded, Russian warplanes repeated its raids on the site, directly targeting the team, which led to the wounding of two defense and a civilian martyr.”

Edlib Media Center, and other sources, also stated that “two volunteers from the Civil Defense were injured as a result of a double raid by Russian occupation aircraft in Al-Hamdieh town south of Idlib.”

In October 2020, Human Rights Watch published a report including their investigation into this incident. HRW spoke with Muhammad Hariri, one of the survivors of the attack. Hariri, the SD ambulance driver, arrived at the site of a strike on a doorframe factory in an industrial neighborhood between 9:30 and 10 AM. Hariri told HRW that upon arrival, “he found a wounded boy who said he was 15-years-old lying under the collapsed roof of the factory and two wounded men, both workers, one of whom later died.”

Shortly after, there was a second strike. Hariri: “We put the wounded into the ambulance and were just starting to drive away when the next strike hit right next to my ambulance. I flew out and onto the ground. I was seriously wounded in my right leg, above the knee. I had to lie there and wait for my team members to come pick me up. I later went to Turkey for one and a half months of surgery, but I still can’t walk.”

Hariri is unaware of any military objectives in the vicinity of the site around the time of the attack.

All sources attributed the attack to Russian forces.