Five civilians were killed in Coalition artillery strikes. The Coalition conceded a total of eight deaths and 24 injuries clustered across CS965, CS965a and CS965b. To avoid triple counting, the official OIR tally is only counted in CS965.

These civilians were initially listed as being victims of an airstrike which killed eight civilians from three families with dozens also left wounded. It has since been uncovered by Amnesty field research that the victims were killed in their home due to artillery shelling.

The Amnesty and Airwars joint April 2019 report War in Raqqa: Rhetoric versus Reality, stated that “Mahmoud Abdallah Abu Hayf, 50, and his two children and his niece and his cousin were killed by an artillery strike outside the house where the family was sheltering. Neighbours told Amnesty International that after they were killed another eight shell landed in the street.”

Salha, a survivor of the strike told Amnesty in a testimony that “My husband was out with the children and when the shelling started he hurried home. They were struck and killed by the front door. My mother and my brother and other relatives were injured in the strike.”

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 CS965a are classed as Credible in our database.