(Previous Incident Codes: R3079RS3284)

Between nine and 12 civilians were killed in airstrikes and/or artillery strikes on the city of Saqba on March 16th 2018. Conflicting reports blame both the Russians and Syrian regime for the incident. One Syrian Civil Defence volunteer was reportedly killed by heavy machine gunfire of Syrian regime soldiers.

Goota4 has named eight of the victims. @SyriaCivilDefe published a photo of Syrian Civil Defense volunteer and the 9th named victim, Hassan Al Husseini, reporting that Al Husseini was killed by “stray bullets while carrying out his humanitarian work in the city of Saqba, as a result of targeting residential neighbourhoods with heavy machine guns and snipers by the regime forces”.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, however, reported that 12 members of the Civil Defense were killed. The number of wounded remains unclear.

The Syrian Human Rights Committee reported that in total, it had documented 99 civilian deaths as the result of Russian and Syrian regime bombing.