Geolocation
Airwars assessment
At least one civilian, a child, was killed and two others, including a woman, were injured in alleged Kurdish or regime strikes on Afrin in the northern countryside of Aleppo on May 2, 2021.
The Syrian Civil Defense reported “the killing of the child “Alia Rahim, 5 years old, and the wounding of a woman and a man, as a result of missile strikes from areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces and the regime forces in the northern countryside of Aleppo.” Various other sources gave the slain child’s age as three years old.
SCD also added that the child’s family had been displaced “from the southern countryside of Aleppo” and Shaam specified that her family “lives in a tent after she was displaced… from the village of Al-Batrana.” The Syrian Network for Human Rights added that the man and woman injured were the child’s parents and Baladi News reported that the parents were seriously injured and taken to the city hospital.
EdlibEmc1 also reported “a child was killed and others were injured due to artillery shelling by separatist Kurdish parties on the city of Afrin, north of Aleppo.”
The Turkish Ministry of Defense stated that the YPG had launched “8 cannons / rockets in the area where the fields are located in Afrin, Olive Branch, injured the mother, her child and a villager,” adding that the child could not be saved.
The Syrian Documentation Center reported that “more than 12 rockets” struck the neighborhood while 7al only identified six shells and located the strikes on the road to Jenderes. Radio Al Kul gave the specific location of the attacks as hitting “the Al-Jadida farm, south of Afrin.”
The majority of sources attributed the strikes to Kurdish forces. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that “it is not known yet if regime forces or Kurdish forces fired these rockets.” They also added that the area hit is under the control of “Turkish forces and their proxy factions” and just a few days prior, Turkish forces had shelled “the Kurdish-controlled villages of Bainah and Sawaghnah in Shirawa district in Afrin countryside.” A tweet from @anasanas84 also blamed the attack on “the Al-Assad and Qasd gangs.”
The local time of the incident is unknown.
The victims were named as:
Family members (2)
Summary
Sources (22) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (6) [ collapse]
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Caption translation: The killing of the child “Alia Rahim, 5 years old, and the wounding of a woman and a man, as a result of missile strikes from areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces and the regime forces in the northern countryside of Aleppo. The body of the child and secured the place. (Image posted Syrian Civil Defense)
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Caption translation: A five-year-old girl, named as Aliaa Rahim, was killed and her parents were injured in shelling by Syrian Democratic Forces who used a missile launcher to bombard a residential area in the center of Afrin city in the northern suburbs of Aleppo governorate on May 2. (Image posted by Syrian Network for Human Rights)
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Screengrab taken from a video posted by the Turkish ministry of Defense on Twitter about the alleged Kurdish shelling on Afrin on May 2, 2021.
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This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Caption translation: A child was killed and a woman was injured as a result of artillery shelling by the Syrian Democratic Forces targeting the city of Afrin in the northern countryside of Aleppo. (Image posted by @zelal_abo_adnan) -
This media contains graphic content. Click to unblur.
Caption translation: The death of the three-year-old girl, Alia, and the injury of her mother as a result of artillery shelling by the SDF that targeted the city of Afrin, west of Aleppo, this morning, Sunday, May 2. (Image posted by @firas_alkhalifa)
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention strikes on a farm in the vicinity of the Jindires road (طريق جنديرس), running south out of the city of Afrin (عفرين) in the direction of the town of Jindires (جنديرس). The generic coordinates for this road are: 36.441824, 36.783912. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.