Airwars assessment
During the late evening of Monday, December 26th, 2023, five members of the Amna family were killed and the surviving member, a young son, injured, when an alleged airstrike by a Russian warplane hit their home on a farm in Alata, near the town of Armanaz, west of Idlib, Syria, and reduced it to rubble.
While the names and ages of those killed and injured are unknown, the Syria Civil Defence (SCD) wrote that “a man, his wife, and three of their children” were killed. The family’s only survivor, a young son, was injured in the strike. Based on photographs, it appears that of the three children who were killed all appear to be well under the age of 18 and one was a young girl and another a young boy. A video shared by SCD shared the rescue efforts and the bodies of two children that were found, a boy and a girl. Many sources emphasized that the strike “killed the entire family” except one son.
SCD shared the images and video showing the rescue efforts by its volunteers amidst the darkness and the transportation of one surviving child to the hospital. The surviving boy was around four or five years old, and his face with a grimace of pain had traces of blood. SCD wrote a very emotional post about this boy who became an orphan:
“Alone without a mother who sleeps in her lap, who combs his hair and tells him stories, and no father who buys him the clothes, toys, and candy that he loves, alone without siblings who play together and grow together… with eyes full of fear… waiting for the unknown… waiting for someone to tell him why Russian planes bombed his house this time. Night… Why were his mother, father, and three brothers killed… What will his life be like after this tragedy???”
In another emotional tweet, the SCD continued to grieve the family who was killed and the future of the only surviving son:
“There is nothing to describe the amount of crime that is in the heart of a pilot when he bombs the home of an Amna family at night, and how in an instant he destroys their dreams and destroys a life that was continuing with hope for a better future, and leaves a single child alive, a witness to the massacre that the Russian planes committed against him and his family, and how they deprived him of his mother and father and 3 of his brothers, and he begins a new life with the pain of his loss that will continue to accompany him in his unknown future.”
White Helmets also shared a striking video of the rescuing the child. They were rushing to an ambulance while carrying him, saying “He is breathing heavily, we need to give him first aid quickly. Rush, rush.” It was seen that the boy was crying from pain while his face and clothes were covered with white dust.
Marwan Al Aliwi, a volunteer in the White Helmets, also shared his emotions on the social media platform X:
“Tonight was one of the most difficult nights I have ever experienced, even though I responded to many attacks and massacres, and there were worse ones. Perhaps we are tired. We are tired of death that pursues us from year to year and from place to place. We are human beings and we have the right to be tired. We have the right to live in peace, without death, without war, without blood and sadness. This is the dream of every person who believes in his humanity.”
Aerial photographs shared to Twitter/X by the SCD a day after the attack showed the extent of the destruction. The images showed partial destruction of five structures and the complete destruction of another.
In an article posted to their website, the SCD wrote that the family had been previously displaced from their home in the southern Idlib countryside.
All but one source available to Airwars, including the Syria Civil Defense, attributed the strike to “Russian warplanes.” Only one source, @amsiiraq on X, attributed responsibility to both “Russian… aircraft and Syrian regime forces.”
The incident occured in the evening.
Summary
Sources (27) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (31) [ collapse]
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe -
Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe -
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe -
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe -
Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @SyriaCivilDefe
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Source: @Rafeefkam
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