Between six and eight civilians, including three to four children and three women, were killed and nine to 11 others, including four children and three women, were injured in alleged Russian and regime strikes on the town of Ihsem around midnight on July 17/July 18, 2021.
According to an Al Jazeera correspondent in Syria, “7 civilians from the same family, all women and children, were killed as a result of missile strikes by the Syrian regime forces that targeted a house in the town of Ihsem in Idlib countryside, and others were wounded.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights originally identified “three women and two children were killed on Saturday evening in the town of Ihsem in the southern countryside of Idlib” and later updated their toll to seven civilians killed, including four women and three children, while Al Modon provided the numbers “3 children and 3 women from one family were killed”. Horrya News identified one of the civilians killed as a health worker.
Civil Defense said on its Facebook page that “6 civilians (3 children and 3 women) were killed, and 9 other civilians were wounded, including 4 children and 3 women, in an initial outcome”. Al Mohrar Media published that the number of injured was more than 10 people, “most of them in critical condition, and the ambulance and civil defense teams worked to transport them to medical points.”
A post from Jabaal Zawya Today named the victims killed in the bombing: Yousra Sergawi, wife of Muhammad Taha, 50 years old; Heba Taqiqa, daughter of Muhammad Taqiqa, 20 years old; Maryam Barakat, Taha’s wife, 20 years old; Khadija Taqiqa, daughter of Samer, 6 years old; Iman Taqiqa, daughter of Samer 4 years old; Tasneem, daughter of Samer, 5 years old; Widad, Sadiq’s wife, 45 years old. A tweet from @Alassaf1977 identified that Taha Taqiqa, the son of Muhammad Taha Taqaqa, 26 years old, had died from his wounds. Aya Sophia Samer Taqiqa, granddaughter of Muhammad Taha, 1 year old, died two days later of her wounds, as reported by @hadikhraat.
Ehsim Now posted the names of those injured: Muhammad Taha Taqiqa, 55 years old; Akram Taqiqa, the son of Muhammad Taha Taqiqa, a minor injury, 14 years old; Hamza Teqiqa, the son of Muhammad Taha, a minor injury, 4 years old; Saba Taqiqa, daughter of Muhammad Taqiqa, a 14-year-old, hand amputation injury; Hadeel Taqiqa, daughter of Muhammad Taha Tuqiqa, Injury, 17 years old; Fatima Taqiqa, daughter of Muhammad Taha, a 20-year-old injured; Sadiq Taqiqa Ibn Abdul Latif, a minor injury, 50 years old; Samer Taqiqa.
Among the dead is Taha Taqiqa, who “waited for his bride [Maryam Barakat] for several years until she graduated from university, and after her graduation she came to him and they got married three days ago. Yesterday, a shell fell and killed him and his bride, along with six other family members, in the town of Ihsim in Idlib countryside” according to a tweet from @Alassaf1977.
Samer Muhammad Sabri Taqiqa, the father of Aya, Iman, Khadija and Tasneem, lost four of his daughters and insisted that he dress Aya in her Eid costume before he bid her final farewell, Al Jazeera reported. He named his daughter Aya Sophia because she was “born in conjunction with the opening of the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul last year by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
@Gurbtwatan tweeted that it took “more than 30 hours” for the Civil Defense teams to retrieve the body of Iman Samer Taqiqa from under the rubble.
France24 reported that “an AFP photographer in Ihsem saw paramedics working after midnight under floodlights to retrieve the body of a woman from the rubble of the roof of a collapsed house. They wrapped the body in a blanket and took it to an ambulance. A survivor of the family told AFP that visitors were gathered at the house to congratulate a family member on his marriage.”
The majority of sources that reported on the incident attributed the strikes to the regime or the regime and Russia. Al Araby News blames the regime and reported that regime forces bombed the village “from the Hamidiya base in the city of Maarat al-Numan”. However, Shaam News identified artillery shelling, originating from the Russian forces, with advanced Krassenpol missiles, coinciding with the flight of Russian reconnaissance planes that did not leave the airspace. They added that “the defense teams had great difficulty working, as reconnaissance planes monitored the area at night,” for fear that they would launch a double strike on the rescue crews.
The incident occured around midnight.
