Five civilians, four children and a woman, were injured in alleged Turkish artillery shelling of the village of Qartage in Ain Issa countryside on May 17, 2022.
Hawar News documented the names of the woman and the four children that were injured in the Turkish artillery shelling on Qartage farm south of Ain Issa. The woman’s name is Na’aima al-Mudhi and her children are Katala Ali al-Hamoud (6 years old), Manhal Ali al-Hamoud (9 years old), A’azra Ali Al-Hamoud (10 years old) and Hayel Ali al-Hamoud (12 years old).
A medical source from the National Hospital in Raqqa told North Press Agency that “one of the children was diagnosed with Hemiplegia, a condition caused by brain damage or spinal cord injury that leads to paralysis on one side of the body”. Muhammad al-Ayed, a neurosurgeon at the Raqqa National Hospital, said that the 13-year-old child, Hayel Muhammad, was hit by a shrapnel that entered his back and ended in his abdomen, causing him to lose the ability to walk. Although it has been removed by surgery, it caused significant damage to the child’s spine. The other civilians injured, the children and their mother, are in stable condition.
Hawar News’ correspondent added that “the mother and her children were nomads, and they were in their tent near a Russian base”. All of the injured members of the family “were transferred to the dispensary of the town of Tal al-Samn, south of the district, and as a result of the severe and critical injuries, they were transferred again to National Hospital in the city of Raqqa”.
Arna Hammoud, 50, the aunt of the injured children, told North Press Agency that the Turkish shelling hit the tents that they had taken as homes and that the family had been working as shepherds and had been living in the tent that was shelled for a week. “The Turkish shelling directly targeted our tents; we tried to escape but my brother’s family was injured anyway” she said.
North Press Agency reported that in addition to the bombing that resulted in wounded civilians, Turkish forces bombed several villages, Al-Shirkarak, Mulaq, Jabal, Fatsa, Skairo, Ain Issa camp and the international road “M4”, in the countryside of Ain Issa with heavy weapons, mortar and artillery shells. The bombings also caused material damage to the property of residents.
The village that housed the injured family, Qartage, is located 5km away from Ain Issa and hosts dozens of IDPs from Tel Abyad, according to North Press Agency.
All of the sources that reported on the incident attributed the strikes to Turkey and North Press Agency specifically identified the source of the bombing to be the Turkish bases in the adjacent villages, inside Syrian territory.
The incident occured during the night.
