Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Up to nine civilians including children and a woman died and as many as dozens more were wounded in an airstrike on the village of Salihiya at the northern entrance to the city of Deir Ezzor, local media reported.
Three sources – @ِALAMAWI, @ShahbaPress, LCCSY – said that six victims from one family had died. The majority of reports pointed to Russia, though several also said that the regime may have been responsible for the casualties.
According to Syria News Desk, “Russian Warplanes used cluster bombs to target the village of Salihia, which is under the control of the organisation [Isis] in the east countryside of Deir Ezzor, killing seven civilians from one family and injuring more than 15 others”.
The Violations Documentation Centre named one male child fatality. Free DeirEzzor Radio also named the victim and blamed Russian cluster bombs, which it said had killed seven people. The highest death toll was put at nine by @RFS_mediaoffice, though the source didn’t identify the culprit.
Both the Syrian Network for Human Rights and the Shaam News Network put the death count at six including three children. SN4HR added that a woman also died. However, these two sources blamed “government warplanes and its allies”.
According to Deirezzor24, “dozens” more civilians were wounded in the incident.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Salhiya (الصالحية), for which the generic coordinates are: 34.7146658, 40.7555866. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (23) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (4) [ collapse]
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Terkey Mahmoud al-Mhaidi, killed in an alleged Russian cluster bomb strike on Salihiya, Aug 18th (via Free Deirezzor radio)
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Terkey Mahmoud al-Mhaidi, killed in an alleged Russian cluster bomb strike on Salihiya, August 18th. (via Mohamed Dabool) -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Terkey Mahmoud al-Mhaidi, killed in an alleged Russian cluster bomb strike on Salihiya, August 18th. (via Mohamed Dabool) -
The aftermath of the incident. (via, JisirTV)
Russian Military Assessment:
Original strike reports
On August 18th 2016, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation reported that, "Tu-22M3 long-range bombers and Su-34 tactical bombers took off from airbases on the territories of the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran and carried out a group air strike on objects of the ISIS terrorist grouping in the Deir ez-Zor province. As a result, the strikes have eliminated 5 large depots with armament, munitions and fuel, 6 control centres, a large number of militants, artillery positions and armoured hardware of terrorists."