At least three civilians, including a White Helmet volunteer and an elderly woman, were killed, and two other civilians, both White Helmets volunteers, were injured in alleged Russian or regime strikes on the village of Sarja, Syria, on July 17, 2021.

Syrian Today reported that “three volunteers from the Civil Defense were hit by laser-guided Krassenpol shells while trying to rescue the injured and recover the dead”.

Syrian Network for Human Rights provided the information that “Just as the Syrian Civil Defense (SCD) team reached the site and residents of the area gathered to aid the injured and evacuated victims, the same forces carried out a ‘double tap’ artillery strike at the same site, causing the death of three civilians, including an elderly woman, and Hammam al-Asi, a media worker for the Civil Defense agency, as well as injuring two other members of the SCD with various degrees, in addition to the severe damage to the house and the surrounding area. SNHR notes that Mrs. Saeedah al-Asi, aged 60, the elderly woman who was killed in the second attack, was the grandmother of the three young sisters killed in the first attack.”

According to @AmruSalahuddien, “Russian artillery deliberately targeted, after aerial reconnaissance, the Syrian Civil Defense team while rescuing civilians trapped under the rubble in the village of Sarja”.

@anasanas84 listed the Civil Defense members who were injured in the strike: Kamel Zureik, Hammam al-Asi, and Mahmoud Othman. @EdlibNN later reported that Hammam Al-Asi died from his injuries and @jisrtv added that his colleagues had been waiting in the hospital while he was in the operating room, but he did not survive. Syrian Civil Defense reported that his last words to his colleagues were “I want to go back and document the crimes of the regime” and that he would be buried in his beloved village of Bzabur.

One of the victims of the strike, Hammam al-Asi, was photographing the incident when he was killed and was able to capture an image of the moment the strike occurred, posted by @AmruSalahuddien. Hammam was a civil defense journalist in the Bzabur center.

Al-Durar Al-Shamiya published a statement from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham that “commended the efforts made by Hammam in helping the injured and exhuming the bodies of the martyrs from his family and brothers, in addition to documenting the moments of emergency that exposed the reality of the Assad regime and the Russian occupier.”

Syrian Civil Defense published a statement that “Hammam al-Asi conveyed the truth to the world as evidence of the crimes of the regime and Russia. Their missiles were present, as they used to kill the truth and stifle votes.”

Sources were conflicted as to whether Russia or the regime was responsible. Syrian Civil Defense attributed the strikes to both the regime and Russia, while Edlib Media Center blamed only the regime, and a tweet from @AmruSalahuddien blamed only Russia.