Up to 16 civilians, including between two and five children and 5 to seven women, were killed and up to 35 civilians, including two women and four children were wounded in alleged Russian airstrikes on a farm housing displaced people near Ma’aret Misrin, Idlib governorate, on March 5th, 2020, according to local sources.
@seerij80 tweeted 14 names of some of the civilians who were killed: Mohammed Hussein Harkoush, an Unknown woman, Mohammed Mustafa Eid, Mohammed al Hussein Saleh Harkoush, Mohammed Al Saleh Harkoush, Ahmad Al Ghadban, Yasser Hamoud, Aya Salem Qoutaish, Maya Salem Qoutaish, Irein Mohammed Qoutaish, Jamila Ibrahim Al Saleh, Yaza Hamoud, Zainab Harkoush, Fatima Harkoush and Ibrahim Harkoush. Other sources reported the civilian death toll as high as 16.
Edlib Media Center reported that there were “civilian martyrs and wounded as a result of Russian occupation warplanes targeting a building inhabited by displaced people near the city of Maarat Misrin, north of Idlib, at dawn today [March 5th, 2020].”
Multiple sources added that most of the civilians harmed by the strike had been women and children, Smart News reported that 7 of the civilian deaths were women. Others reported as many as 5 of the civilian deaths were children.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that “the presence of at least 18 wounded people, some of them in critical conditions, in addition to information about other martyrs, as rescue teams continue to remove the rubble and search for missing persons”. Other sources reported that the number of injured was as high as 35.
Witnesses told Smart News Agency that the Russian warplanes targeted a farm inhabited by displaced people from the Ma’arat Al Numan area, killing nine civilians and wounding 20. The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported the farm was a poultry farm. According to SOHR, the victims are displaced people from Hama, Aleppo and other areas of Idlib.
Ahmed Sheikho, director of the Syrian Civil Defence Media office in Idlib told Smart News Agency that “Russian warplanes launched two raids on a farm inhabited by displaced families in the vicinity of the city of Ma’arat Misrin, killing 16 civilians, including seven women and two children, and wounding 21 others, including two children and four women”. Edlib Media Center reported that 32 people were wounded.
The airstrike took place around 2-3:00am and hit derelict farm buildings in which displaced families had been seeking refuge.
Bab Al Taka added that 6 of the civilians killed had previously been residents of “Bab al-Taqa village”. Other sources reported Aleppo and Hama as other areas where the displaced people living in Ma’aret Misrin had previously fled from.
Reuters reported on the ensuing situation of talks between President Putin and Erdogan, where “Putin expressed his regret to Erdogan over the recent killing of 34 Turkish soldiers in an air strike, saying that the Syrian army did not know their whereabouts. Civil defense workers helping to clear the rubble and search for survivors said that at least 16 civilians were killed”.
Human rights watch later reported that “at least five munitions” had hit the buildings in which “14 displaced families were living”. The Human rights watch source also gave the harrowing account of a man and his son who said “For some families, no one was left. For other families, only one or two people survived, and they left. Others whose shelter was destroyed also left. We are the only family who stayed behind, because we found a room nearby. We didn’t stay willingly, but we have nowhere else to go…”
A witness described the scene as “I saw a woman and her husband under the rubble with their daughter, who was about 6 years old. The man was waving his hand for help… I dug the girl out from under the rubble and placed her on a mattress on the ground while we waited for the ambulance. Suddenly, an airplane dropped a complete load of [munitions] on us. I heard a huge bang and the explosion threw me to the ground and I couldn’t move. My clothes got ripped off. I finally stood up afterwards and realized I had burns to my head and could not hear from one ear.”
Human rights watch added that “the area where he had laid the girl down had been blown up, killing the girl, he said. Two SCD volunteers who arrived after the first two munitions hit found seven people wounded, whom they took to hospital. Several team members remained there when the next set of munitions hit, killing some of those who had been wounded in the first set of strikes.”
According to Human Rights Watch, “All witnesses interviewed said they knew of no military objectives in the vicinity before or at the time of the attack, nor were there signs of military weapons, equipment, or personnel in the imagery reviewed.”
Human Rights Watch also identified “Sentry messages sent that morning between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m., on the messaging app Telegram, included continuous sightings of a Russian aircraft in the area and the COI, in the report it released in July 2020, said it had “reasonable grounds to believe” the attack had been carried out by Russia.” The vast majority of other sources that reported on the incident attributed the strikes to Russia, with only Shaam News mentioning both Russian and regime planes carrying out strikes. Therefore, we grade this as likely carried out by Russian forces.
The incident occured around dawn.
