Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Up to 30 civilians including seven children died and between 23 and 45 more were injured in a major casualty event on a refugee camp in Al-Hashem and Shanina, according to local sources. While most reports blamed the US-led Coalition, one also mentioned Kurdish artillery.
Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently published “pictures of the martyrs and wounded, mostly children, as a result of the bombing of coalition forces and the artillery of the Kurdish militias on the area of Hashem and the outskirts of the town of Shanina north of the city of Al-Raqqa.”
Ahmad al Hamad was named as a victim of a Coalition raid by Al Ragga Truth.
Death counts varied. According to Shaam, three civilians died, while Syrianpc put the death count at four: “a man, his wife and their son, in addition to the martyrdom of ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-Fayyad, 14 years old, and the injury of his entire family”.
Zaman Alwasl reported that “Islamic State media published testimony of a doctor from a hospital in Raqqa, who confirmed the killing of seven children and wounding of 30 more children, along with 15 women, in an aerial bombardment and US artillery strikes on the villages of Shanina and Mazra’at al-Rashid in the northern Rifqa.”
Al Ragga Truth, also attributing the event to Coalition jets, put the death toll as high as 30 – all members of the family of Abu al Hana from al Bu Hmeid.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, seven children died in the strike. Although it is important to note that this report pinpointed the date of the incident at May 12th, whereas most other sources mention May 13th as the date of the airstrike.
An Amnesty International report released in August, 2017 also identified May 12th as the date of the incident. According to the report, a series of air strikes killed 31 family members in Shannina, targeting “simple agricultural structures” where Internally Displaced Persons were sheltering. Relatives who had survived the airstrike stated to the Amnesty researchers that the bombardments started at 8pm and continued until 4am.
One of the survivors told Amnesty International: “The bombs killed many children, small children aged few months to six years.” The survivors had identified some of the victims of the airstrike, but only mentioned the first names to the field researchers: Iman, her husband and their four-year-old son Haitham; her mother-in-law Noura; Fadda along with six children; one of them was a baby boy born four days earlier and not yet named; Fadda’s sister and husband and three of their four children; Sumaya; Jamal along with his two daughters, and his mother Fatima, his brother Mousa and his two-year-old son Mahmoud; Mohammed and his son and daughter, aged four and six; Amina and her husband and their little girl, and Amina’s sister, Shaha, and her husband and their two young children; Mohammed Nasser, aged 60.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (3)
Family members (4)
Family members (2)
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (17) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (8) [ collapse]
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A child allegedly killed in the strike (via RBSS) -
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Children allegedly killed in the strike (via RBSS) -
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A child allegedly injured in the strike (via RBSS) -
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A child allegedly injured in the strike (via RBSS) -
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Another child allegedly killed in the strike (via RBSS) -
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Another child allegedly injured in the strike (via RBSS) -
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Children allegedly killed in the strike (via RBSS) -
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Another child allegedly injured in the strike (via RBSS)
US-led Coalition Assessment:
Original strike reports
For May 12th-13th the Coalition reported: “Near Raqqah, five strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed two fighting positions, a front-end loader, an ISIS crane, and a house-born improvised explosive device.”