A female child was killed by artillery shelling from the US-led Coalition. The Coalition later conceded a total of eight deaths and 24 injuries clustered across this event and CS965 and CS965b. To avoid triple counting, the official OIR tally is only counted in CS965.

This civilian was initially listed as killed in an airstrike which killed eight civilians from three families – including named victim – with dozens also left wounded. It has since been uncovered by Amnesty field research that this victim was killed by shrapnel which entered the home while she was on the 2nd floor.

According to the Amnesty and Airwars’s joint April 2019 report “War in Raqqa: Rhetoric versus Reality”, the “Wife of Ala Ahmad Ali Hamsho, Suhaila Mohammed Dhibo, was killed. Her husband was downstairs  waiting for Suhaila who was upstairs on second floor getting ready leave and go to her family due to too much shelling”.

The mother-in-law – Houda – provided testimony to Amnesty International saying “Suhaila was upstairs getting some belonging while my son waited for her downstairs. They were going to leave and go to her father because there was a lot of artillery shelling in the area.”

A number of sources alleged that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were responsible for the strikes with the Syrian Network blaming SDF mortars. However, the Coalition also reported that it conducted artillery fire in the Raqqa.

In February 2019, the Coalition accepted responsibility for the event, noting: “Coalition artillery targeted ISIS fighters. Regrettably, eight civilians were unintentionally killed and 24 civilians were unintentionally injured due to their proximity to the impacts.”

Both this event and CS965 are classed as credible events.