Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Between 13 and 16 civilians died and four were injured in an “unexplained” explosion in the village of Oweijal, local media said – though it was unclear whether the Coalition, the Syrian regime or Russia were to blame. Most sources blamed the Syrian regime for the strikes.
An unspecific numbers of civilians were wounded, however it was reported that the number of civilians were likely to rise due to the types of injuries.
According to the Smart News Agency, “the head of the Civil Defence in the western Aleppo countryside, Mohamed Halaq, said that the blast caused the collapse of a three-storey building on Sunday evening, killing 16 civilians, including nine children and four women, in addition to wounding for more, who rushed to a nearby field hospital.
“Halaq pointed out that they could not determine the cause of the explosion, but that it was likely the result of an international coalition raid or a missile explosion from a previous bombardment of the village.”
However, a subsequent report by Smart pointed towards the Assad regime and Russia, saying that “the Civil Defence thinks the explosion could have resulted from the remnants of previous raids by the regime and Russia.”
Radio Allkul blamed a regime surface to surface missile citing Abu al-Leith, the director of the local Civil Defence. Shaam News Network and Baladi also attributed the event to the regime.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added that “information about the reasons of the explosion was conflicted as to whether it was caused by the explosion of an ammunition dump, or by shelling by regime forces using what was believed to be a ground-to-ground missile.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Oweijal (عويجل), for which the generic coordinates are: 36.179537, 36.952987. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (18) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (3) [ collapse]
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This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
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The aftermath of an airstrike on Oweijel, 30th April 2017. (via Shaam)
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The aftermath of an airstrike on Oweijel, 30th April 2017. (via Halabtoday)
Attached to this civilian harm incident is a provisional reconciliation of the Pentagon's declassified assessment of this civilian harm allegation, based on matching date and locational information.
The declassified documents were obtained by Azmat Khan and the New York Times through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits filed since March 2017, and are included alongside the corresponding press release published by the Pentagon. Airwars is currently analysing the contents of each file, and will update our own assessments accordingly.
US-led Coalition Assessment:
Original strike reports
The Coalition has not publicly reported any strikes in Aleppo governorate for April 30th-May 2nd.