13 civilians were killed – including nine from one family – due to the “bombing of the International Air Force on the city of Raqqa during the battle for control of the city”. Kurdish news agency Hawar later published an interview with a survivor named as Yazan Abdulrahman Mohammad, in which it was stated that in fact named nine family members had died in the event. According to the report itself, the family died during ISIS shelling of the building in which they were sheltering. However in the accompanying video interview, Mr Mohammad in fact blames their deaths on a “missile from a plane.” Field research done by Amnesty International reported that four of the victims were neighbours. Amnesty reported that nine family members died along with four neighbours in an airstrike on a four storey house in Hadeeqat al Bayda. This was their family home however the neighbours were Internally Displaced People.

During investigations of this event for the April 2019 joint Airwars and Amnesty report War in Raqqa: Rethoric versus Reality (www.raqqa.amnesty.org), Amnesty field researchers interviewed Yazan about this incident and established the exact location of it. The report notes: “An airstrike on a four-storey building in the Hadeeqat al Bayda neighbourhood killed nine members of the Subhi family and four of their neighhours.” Yazan said the following: “Every one in my family was killed in the strike, as well as our next door neighbours, who had come to stay with us because their house had been bombed the previous day. 19 were killed in that strike.” The strike of the previous day, in which 19 members of the next door neighbours were killed can be found under the following incident code: CS1634. The investigation also found that the strike took place at 5pm on October 3rd, 2017, rather than on October 17, as Airwars had initially reported.

The incident occured at 5:00 pm local time.