Airwars assessment
In a contested event, four named women and men were reported killed in an airstrike at Um Mayyal. While Violations Documentation Center, the Syrian Network and others blamed Russia, the opposition Syria News Desk – which said three homes were destroyed in the incident – said the attack was the work of Assad regime aircraft.
The Syrian Network later published eyewitness testimony from Hassan Al Ahmad, manager of the Child Care Organization, who visited the site: “I was 1.5 km away from the shelling location and went directly to see what happened. I saw a group of young men from the civil defense trying to tell the crowds to leave the shelling site out of fear from being shelled again. The council was shelled previously and the schools suffered from great damage, and four young men were injured Our city is run by local civilian committees and is free of any military presence for any group as all headquarters were evacuated according to the residents’ demands. However, the Russian warplanes launched their airstrikes on civilians.”
The dead were later named.
The Syrian Network said four young men were injured in the attack – but made no mention of fatalities.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (3)
- Khlaif Shahoud al-Hekari Adult male killed
- Shahoud Khlaif al-Hekari Adult male killed
- Fatima Khlaif al-Hekari Adult female killed
- Dahlia Adult female 52 year old killed
Summary
Sources (5) [ collapse]
Russian Armed Forces Assessment:
Original strike reports
The Russian Defence Ministry has confirmed carrying out airstrikes in Hama governorate on October 27th-28th 2015: “For 24 hours, aircraft of the Russian air group in the Syrian Arab Republic have performed 71 combat sorties engaging 118 terrorist objects in the Idlib, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Damascus and Lattakia provinces.”