Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Between six and 12 civilians, including between two and three children and two women, were killed and between five and 37 others were injured in alleged Russian or Syrian regime airstrikes against the town of Kala’at al Madeeq in central Syria according to local sources.
Smart News initially reported that eight civilians were killed but later increased their estimate of the death toll to 10, however, the Violations Documentation Centre named 12 victims. Some sources said that a popular market was struck.
Conflicting reports were given of who was responsible for carrying out the airstrikes. For example, the Smart News Agency reported that Russian planes were to blame for the airstrikes while Syrian Network for Human Rights identified the planes as Syrian-Russian alliance forces.
According to Smart News, those killed were mostly children and women and at the time of reporting, the Civil Defence teams were still removing dead and wounded from the rubble. The local hospital could no longer take more patients so the wounded needed to go to nearby hospitals. The airstrikes struck a popular market and the old neighbourhood in the town.
At 0’15” in a video posted by Bawabat hama a man says: “We were sitting here and the plane came and hit us. Eight people were killed and god knows how many wounded, I don’t know how many. I mean it’s a really hard situation.”
One local source reported the death of Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who Airwars researchers believe was a member of the civil administration to the Assad regime.
Syrian Coalition reported that the civil defence continued to search for victims the following day.
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the town of Kala’at al Madeeq (قلعة المضيق), for which the generic coordinates are: 35.409617, 36.390495. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.
Summary
Sources (31) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (12) [ collapse]
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Images of children, Mirna Khaled al Jadou and Khaled Eyas al Jadou, killed in airstrikes against Kala'at al Madeeq on September 20, 2017 (via Syrian Network for Human Right)
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