Eight non-combatants including a child were reported killed in alleged Russian warplanes targeted trucks in the town of Azaz.

Russian planes launched several rockets on a civilian area, hitting freight trucks 2km from Bab Al Salameh on the Syrian-Turkish border. The Syrian Network said the vehicles specialised in transporting foodstuff to and from the crossing, and that no less than eight freight cars were destroyed.

Majed Al Halabi, a local media activist in Izaz, gave SN4HR his testimony: “The Russian warplane hovered around next to Bab Al Salama crossing point then it fired two vacuum rockets on the gathering of freight vehicles. I knew that the shelling was Russian due to the FSA observatories that pick up signals between a warplane and the military base. The shelling ignited a fire in the freight cars that gathered on the north-western side of the city. The civil defence teams arrived and pulled out the victims’ bodies from under the rubble and transported them to Ezzaz National Hospital. The critical cases were transported to Turkey’s  hospitals.”

SN4HR named three victims

Also, VDC has named the following fatalities, all adult males.

Russia has accepted responsibility for the attack though not the civilian casualties: “Messages of some foreign media concerning the alleged engagement of a column of trucks of a “humanitarian convoy” from Turkey near the border-crossing point Bab Al-Salam by the Russian aircraft are also nothing but stovepiping. It is to be stressed that the photos and videos published in the Internet:

* first, do not show any craters of exploded munitions;

* second, do not feature any fragmentations, which could damage all the trucks, as a result of strikes.

* finally, there are no remains of the mere munitions.

That is why they are advised not to pose convoys with ammunition for militants active to the north of Aleppo as “humanitarian help”. By the way, the Turkish party had not given any notice concerning delivering of any humanitarian convoy in this area. Aside from the fact that any humanitarian convoy is specially marked.”

As an Al Jazeera reporter on the scene noted, Russia’s attack may have had a political motive: “The raid focused on the industrial area which according to the civil defence we spoke to earlier, has led to critical injuries and the destruction of several trucks that were here. This is the first time that the border area has been targeted and it has come after Turkey downed a Russian plane in the Lattakia countryside yesterday.”

The local time of the incident is unknown.