(Previous Incident Code: R3485)

Up to eight civilians, including a child, were killed and up to 20 were injured in alleged Russian or Syrian regime airstrikes on Al Samak market and a school in the centre of Jisr Al Shughour on May 14, 2020, according to local sources.

@Wesal_TV reported: “Civilian martyrs and wounded as a result of a raid by Russian aviation at breakfast time that targeted a popular market in the city of Jisr Al Shughour in the western Idlib countryside.”

Several sources, such as Euphrates Post wrote that the strikes had killed five civilians. The Syrian Civil Defence reported that seven civilians were killed and that 20 more were wounded. Sources reported in total the names of seven killed civilians and eight injured civilians.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights initially reported that four civilians were killed and that eight had been wounded. According to the source, one of the civilians who survived the raid, nicknamed “Abu Samer,” said that the warplanes launched raids on the popular market in the city minutes before breakfast. In a later post, the source added that at least seven civilians had died, including a girl. Syrian Network for Human Rights was the only source that blamed the Syrian regime for the attack.

According to Step News, the raids led to the deaths of five civilians and wounded eight other. The source claimed that the number of fatalities was likely to increase in the next hours due to the serious nature of the injuries. Step News later added that the number of fatalities had risen to six civilians.

The Syrian Civil Defense reported that their teams “rushed to the scene of the attack and evacuated the victims and worked to extinguish the fire that broke out in a number of clothing shops as a result of the raids. The Civil Defense vehicles also transferred a number of wounded to Turkish hospitals because of the lack of facilities for treatment inside the city of Jisr Al Shughour.”

The UN Commission of Inquiry for Syria cited the event in its September 2019 report: “On 14 May, at around 7.00 p.m., pro-government forces airdropped between two and four missiles on a fish market and primary school for girls in Jisr al-Shughur. Eyewitnesses described how at least three missiles had been airdropped on the market, largely destroying commercial shops and market stands, while bodies were scattered throughout the affected area. The attack killed at least eight civilians, including seven men and a 3-year-old girl, while injuring eight other persons.

Witnesses interviewed by the Commission recalled that a few minutes after the first strike, a second missile hit nearby Abdul Rahman Al Naser primary school for girls, destroying its walls, the administration office, as well as the school bookshop and playground.

One witness described how, earlier in the morning on that day, teachers had interrupted the distribution of diplomas due to the increased number of reconnaissance aircraft circling over the town. Moreover, during the period under review, the Commission received credible information that some 70 schools in the demilitarized zone of Idlib had been destroyed or damaged by hostilities, depriving over 200,000 pupils from receiving formal education.”

While most sources blamed Russia for the airstrikes, others, such as the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, blamed the Syrian regime.

According to Human Rights Watch, “On May 14, 2019 at 7 p.m., two munitions struck the Abdul Rahman Nasir primary school for girls, one in the schoolyard and another in the nearby market. Airstrikes had twice damaged the school, which has an enrollment of 182 students with 17 teachers, and a neighboring mosque in 2017. “No one at the school was injured because the school was closed for the night but the attack damaged so many of the classrooms that we could not reopen the school,” said Islah Issa, the head of the school.”