(Previous Incident Codes: R045RS061)

On October 20, 2015, the alleged Russian airstrikes killed at least 14 non-combatants, according to multiple accounts.

The first strike at 1 p.m. hit near a school and a field hospital in the town of Sarmin run by the Syrian-American Medical Society (SAMS.) A secondary strike, or “double tap” – captured on camera, – showed an apparently deliberate attack on rescue workers clearing the streets.

Among the dead were a physiotherapist, a nurse, and a ‘White Helmet’ civil defence worker, Abdul Razak al-Aboud (see below.)

A witness named ‘S M’ told the Syrian Network:

“The first missile fell on a school and a hospital. The civil defense teams, some paramedics and media activists rushed to the shelling site. The shelling caused material damages and some injuries. However, 15 minutes later, another rocket was shelled in the exact same location. During the second shelling, I noticed a gleam like the camera’s flash and did not hear the plane’s sound. After that, I felt that I was picked pushed upwards from the blasts’ power. Everything around me was white and dusty, and I smell blood and gun powder. I thought that I had died. The attack resulted in the death of 17 individuals, including civil defense members, paramedics and media activists.“

Speaking to the Guardian, Dr Mohamed Tennari, the director of Sarmin hospital, “said his facility appeared to have been directly targeted and could no longer serve patients on one of the fiercest frontlines in the war.”

A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman brushed aside the allegations, claiming the Syrian-American Medical Society “has the same relation to medicine and doctors as the ISIL to the international Scouting movement.” However, an investigation by Amnesty International challenged satellite images which Russia said proved it had not targeted the field hospital: “Infrastructure that appears damaged or destroyed in footage immediately after the attack is seen intact in the satellite image presented by Russian authorities, indicating the satellite image is from before the attack.”

Four months after the event, a man named by the VDC as Hsain Diab also died of injuries sustained in the attack.