Incident Code
Incident Code
Incident Date
Location
Geolocation
Geolocation
Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Code: S1536)
Between 10 and 30 civilians were reported killed and “dozens” injured in an alleged Coalition airstrike on Al Sha’afa. Most sources stressed that many of the victims were women and children.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the deaths of 22 civilians, including 9 children and 7 women and stressed that the toll was expected to rise due to the critical situation some of the injured civilians were in.
Deir Ezzor 24 tweeted that airstrikes had targeted the “Al Kashma district” of Al Sha’afa – later mentioning that more than ten civilians were harmed by the bombardments. Most sources specifically reported that 17 or 26 civilians were killed, with Free Deir Ezzor Radio even reporting “more than 30 martyrs, mostly women and children, as a result of US air strikes at dawn today”.
One activist, who declined to be named, told Smart News reporters that the civilian casualties may be ISIS family members as “the town’s families had left more than a month ago.” This was echoed by tweets from @QSD_Jabha and @Norsforstudies, as well as a Baladi report stating that – according to so-called Islamic State itself – 30 civilians were killed in Al Sha’afa.
In its monthly civilian casualty assessment for September 2019 – published on November 15th – the alliance classed the event as ‘non credible’, asserting that “After a review of all available records it was determined that, more likely than not, civilian casualties did not occur as a result of a Coalition action.”
Coalition officials confirmed to Airwars that their review was a match for this event, and provided coordinates for the area assessed to within 100 metres.
Key Information
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Al Sha’afa: Al-Kashma district (الشفعة), for which the generic coordinates are: 34.57888, 40.93441. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.