At nine o’clock in the morning on Thursday, the 23rd of November, 2023, two civilians, including a woman, working as olive farmers, were reportedly injured in an alleged Turkish drone strike that targeted a car in the village of Al-Bugaz, near the city of Manbij in Aleppo Governorate in north-west Syria.

On the day following the strike, the 24th of November, several news outlets initially reported that only one civilian had been injured by the strike. These included Rojava News, North Media Center, Hawar News, and Ronahi TV. However, both Rojava News and Hawar News later revised their reporting, stating that two civilians had been wounded in the attack. On the same day, Qamishlo News and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) both stated that two civilians had been injured by the strike, as did another media and news company, Syria Al-Hadath, which specifically stated, via Facebook, that a “Turkish suicide drone” had been used to strike the car carrying civilian workers. The initial Facebook post by Hawar News specified that the drone strike occurred at “nine o’clock” in the morning.

A subsequent report by the Hawar News agency, also dated the 24th of November, identified and interviewed Muhammad Sheikho, one of the civilians injured in the strike. The online report from Hawar News, published on the outlet’s website, stated that the drone had “targeted workers picking olives near the contact line in the village of Al-Bugaz on the western front of the city of Manbij”. According to the report from Hawar News, Muhammad Sheikho was transferred to Barkal Hospital in the city of Manbij.

During the interview with Hawar News, Muhammad Sheikho said “This morning we went to harvest olives. And I had 6 workers and my family with me. When we arrived at the field, we were targeted by a drone. I and another girl were slightly injured. We are not military personnel and we are not carrying weapons. We are farmers.”

He also stated that the village of Al-Bugaz had been bombed frequently, explaining that workers were struck by Turkish artillery in the same location as the drone strike, only a week before. Hawar News posted a short video of the interview with Muhammad Sheikho on the network’s YouTube channel, dated the 24th of November.

The report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) added further context to the alleged drone strike by stating, on the 24th of November, that “the Turkish side confirms that it is only pursuing the military through its targeting of the Autonomous Administration areas”. However, SOHR additionally noted that such targeting “also affects civilians and this confirms the framework of a new escalation by the Turkish Air Force within areas of influence of the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria.” The Rojava News report on the attack added that the area where the alleged drone strike was conducted was “under the influence of forces of the Manbij Military Council.”

Where sources identified the belligerent, all sources attributed this drone strike to the Turkish military.

The incident occured at 09:00:00 local time.