Geolocation
Airwars assessment
As many as four civilians were killed – including three children and one woman reportedly from the same family – and up to 19 were wounded in an airstrike on a primary school in Arbeen, local media said.
Three belligerents were reportedly sighted, meaning there is confusion among sources as to who is responsible. Two sources blamed Russian warplanes, others the Syrian regime. Some sources did not attribute any blame.
Upsetting footage showed tens of children running, screaming from the school through the rubble in a chaotic fashion. The footage also showed partial damage to the school building.
More video evidence showed the White Helmets pulling an injured child from the rubble who was buried alive due to the raids.
According to @almasaronline, as many as “19 were killed and wounded in the bombing of a primary school in the countryside of Damascus”. This was the highest casualty figure from the event.
A source published footage of the burial of the victims in the aftermath of the incident.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (4)
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the town of Arbeen (عربين), for which the generic coordinates are: 33.538143, 36.364331. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (16) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (4) [ collapse]
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Russian Military Assessment:
Original strike reports
Russia has not reported any specific strikes between December 1st – 31st 2016.
On 6 January 2017, Russia, however, reported: “Since November 8, 2016, the aircraft carrier group of the Northern Fleet consisting of the heavy aircraft carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, the heavy nuclear missile cruiser Pyotr Velikiy, the large ASW ship Severomorsk, as well as auxiliary vessels of the Black Sea Fleet, has been fulfilling counterterrorist missions on the territory of Syria”, adding that ”in the course of two months of their participation in the combat actions, naval aviation pilots have carried out 420 combat sorties, 117 of them were night ones.”