(Previous Incident Code: R3122)

47 people, among which 17 women, including three pregnant women, and 17 children, were killed by airstrikes on a shelter in the city of Arbin, Eastern Ghouta, in the night of March 22nd, 2018. Conflicting reports blamed both Russia and the Syrian regime for the attack.

@N_workMediaHoms tweeted that warplanes dropped more than 30 barrels of explosives on Arbin.

Shaam Network said reporting from the Syrian Civil Defense that “Russian raids containing napalm targeted a shelter in the city of Arbin, and killed more than 37 people mostly women and children in a massacre against humanity. Since the middle of the night, more than 30 air strikes, most of them carrying phosphorous and cluster bomb attacks, have been carried out in the city of Duma since the middle of the night. Civil Defense teams have responded to the shelling.”

The Violations Documentation Center and Unified Information Office in Arbin published the names of in total 50 victims, mainly women and children, who died in the airstrikes that took place in the evening of March 22nd.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that “at least 44, the number of martyrs who were documented by the SOHR in the massacre carried out by warplanes on Thursday the 22nd of March 2018,. The casualties are 17 children and 13 women including 3 pregnant women, and 14 men, most of them are from one family, and they were all killed in a massacre in Arbin city carried out by airstrikes on the 22nd of March 2018.”

@Omar_Madaniah tweeted that “whole families are now burning in Eastern Ghouta, charred and burned bodies of children and women after Russian raids on a shelter in the city of Abrin with napalm and phosphorus rockets.”

@SiegeWatch reported that “at least 37 civilians died when incendiary weapons fired by pro-government forces hit their shelter.” In another post, SiegeWatch stated that “at least 47 people were killed, 15 were buried in rubble, the rest burned.” They also said the attack happened at times when the city is supposedly under a ceasefire agreement. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights the victims died due to burning or suffocation.

@aboalhodaalhoms tweeted saying that “massive massacres happened in Arbin due to the targeting of basements inhabited by the people, with rockets loaded with internationally prohibited napalm.”

Also @waelwanne reported the use of Napalm saying that civilians were directly targeted and that Russia, Iran and the regime are responsible. @HadiAlabdallah  said the scenes are too graphic to be posted on media.

According to Hassan Jarkas, the young woman Huda Al Raz, who was nine months pregnant, was killed alongside her husband Moataz Shahou. According to the SOHR, two other killed victims were also pregnant.

JisrTV reported 20 wounded. Horrya wrote that 50 civilians had been wounded. According to @SiegeWatch, survivors pulled from the wreckage had “horrific injuries, but only minimal treatment options available for them due to prior destruction of the hospital in targeted attacks.” According to Shaam News Network, the Syrian Civil Defence’s 101st Center teams tried to evacuate the victims from the site.

Al Jazeera reported that “the shelling killed 37 civilians, most of them women and children, according to preliminary data, adding that civilians could not get out of the shelters because of the intensity of airstrikes by the regime and Russia in the area.”

Horrya news said that “Dozens of civilians, including children and women, were killed and others were injured on Friday in airstrikes with incendiary napalm bombs by Russian aggression planes on one of the shelters of the city of Irbin in Eastern Ghouta.”

Multiple sources reported the use of napalm. Anapress and Shaam News Network also claimed white phosphorus was used in the attack.

Whereas some sources, such as Horrya and the SOHR, blamed Russia, others blamed the Syrian regime or both Russia and the Syrian regime for the airstrikes.