(Previous Incident Code: S842)

Up to four civilians died when their boat was struck by the Coalition as they attempted to flee Raqqa, local media said.

In June 2019 the Coalition accepted responsibility for this incident. Its monthly civilian casualty report noted “Coalition aircraft conducted an airstrike against a Daesh barge. Regrettably, two civilians were unintentionally killed and 10 others unintentionally wounded due to their proximity of the strike.”

The United States later said this was one of its military actions.

According to the Euphrates Post at the time, “the coalition aircraft targets small ferries and boats transporting civilians between the banks of the Euphrates River, resulting in the martyrdom of a young man and his wife.”

Step News Agency, also blaming the Coalition, said that “two young men died” when their boat was struck as they tried to escape – which appears to be the same event.

In an August report by Amnesty International, a woman was interviewed who stated that her cousin Yasser along with two women and a man had been killed in an airstrike around June 10th. This event is likely related, as the victim was transporting people across the river. The interviewee stated that “A plane hit the boat and killed him and two women and a man he was transporting. He had taken me and my family across the river a few days earlier. That is what he did, he helped people to flee.”

The Coalition provided Airwars with the location of this incident, accurate to within a 100 metre box.

There has been some confusion as to the exact date of this incident. Amnesty research was inconclusive on the date, so it has reported it as being ‘around the 10th’, whilst Airwars public sources pointed towards the 12th. The Coalition has also reported the 10th for this incident, so we have included a date range.

In its annual; civilian harm report to Congress in May 2020, the Pentagon declared this to have been a US action.