“WAR OF ANNIHILATION”
DEVASTATING TOLL ON CIVILIANS, RAQQA – SYRIA
Amnesty International
19
The four-storey building was destroyed, the interior structures had given way and the floors were piled on top
of one another.
I went to shelter in our old family home across the road until daylight. In the early morning I went to
the collapsed building. I could see my friend’s son, Mahmoud, lying under the debris; he was alive
but was trapped from the waist down under a large collapsed column. I could hear my brother
Jamal and Abu Mahmoud’s daughter, Amal, crying out for help but could not see them. I tried to
help Mahmoud but the column was too heavy. I went to look for help; I went to get Abu
Mahmoud’s brothers from another area and we came back. Mahmoud asked for water and we
gave him some. We still could not move the rubble,
so I went to ask for help from Daesh near the
mosque but they refused and called us ‘murtaddin’
[apostates]. Finally, I went to the SDF (at their front
line position); I went to them with my hands raised
but they shouted and shot around (not at) me and
told me ‘you are Daesh’.
Then they held me for two days and in that time I
did not know what had happened to my brother
Jamal and to Mahmoud and Amal. I knew the
others were dead because there was no sound
coming from them. The SDF eventually took me to
a field hospital in Salhabiyeh where I had the
shrapnel taken out of my back and leg, and then
they took me to an SDF military intelligence base in
Hawi al-Hawa. When they released me [Saturday 1
July 10pm], I went back to the building and found it
further collapsed in such a way that it completely
obstructed any entry point to the basement. There
was no more any sign of life from Mahmoud or from
my brother Jamal or anyone else. I left the area and
then managed to leave Raqqa.
The plans of the Aswad building, near the Jezra intersection in western Raqqa, which was bombed by Coalition forces on 28 June 2017,
killing eight civilians, five of them children.
© Amnesty International
Mohammed Aswad looking down into the basement of his family’s building, where his brother and seven other civilians, were killed in a
Coalition strike on 28 June 2017. The building was completely destroyed.
© Amnesty International
“WAR OF ANNIHILATION”
DEVASTATING TOLL ON CIVILIANS, RAQQA – SYRIA
Amnesty International
20
Satellite images showing the Aswad family’s building before and after it was destroyed in a Coalition air strike which killed eight civilians, five
of them children, on 28 June 2017.
“WAR OF ANNIHILATION”
DEVASTATING TOLL ON CIVILIANS, RAQQA – SYRIA
Amnesty International
21
SLOW DEATH UNDER THE RUBBLE
In the meantime, the children’s uncles kept going back to the scene of the strike. One of them, Taha
Mohammed Othman, told Amnesty International:
The first thing that I saw when I went to the collapsed building was my brother – Mohammed
Mahmoud Othman [50]. He was dead. Then I saw his son, 17-year-old Mahmoud, trapped under a
pillar. We tried but we couldn’t drag the pillar off him. Then I saw his 12-year-old brother Anas,
who was dead. I couldn’t see their sister Amal, 13, but I could hear her. My brother’s wife Fatima
was in there as well. I didn’t see her but later we dug out her body and buried her.
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The uncles remained at the scene until the evening, trying to rescue the survivors trapped under the rubble
in the cellar. However hard they tried, without digging equipment it was impossible. They went home and
made the perilous return the following day despite shelling and mortar fire, but they still could not get them
out. All the while the SDF and IS were shelling each other’s positions.
On the Thursday [29 June 2017], three of them were alive under the rubble – Jamal, Amal and
Mahmoud. We could only see Mahmoud and we could hear the voices of the other two. Mahmoud
kept asking, ‘Where’s my Dad? Where’s my sister? Help me, I want water.’ Amal was also crying for
help, although we couldn’t see her. We stayed until the shelling became too close.
On the Friday it was difficult to come straight away. There were heavy clashes where we lived. IS
kept telling us to move to different places (in the Old City). We asked IS for help to rescue the
survivors in the basement but they refused and called us apostates. When we finally made it back
to the basement on Friday they were all dead.
Those killed by the air strike are as follows:
1.
Jamal Othman Aswad
2.
Mohammed Othman (Abu Mahmoud)
3.
Fatima (Mohammed Othman [Abu Mahmoud]’s wife)
Mohammed Othman’s children (with his deceased first wife):
4.
Mahmoud, 17
5.
Amal, 13
6.
Ahmed, 14
7.
Anas, 12
8.
Ammar, eight
Mohammed Aswad told Amnesty International:
The children who died were good kids. Their father would often speak of them. He said they were
all hard workers. Mahmood was into computers and was good with electronics. He worked in a
pharmacy and tried to save money because he wanted to buy a motorcycle. Ahmed was 14 and he
loved cars. He worked in a sweet shop. Amal was only 13 but she helped out a lot with the
housework after her mother had died two years previously. Anas was 12. He had an old bicycle
and he wanted a new one. The youngest to die was eight-year-old Ammar.
THE MINE/IED
SDF forces prevented residents from returning to Raqqa until some weeks after military operations were
finally completed on 17 October. In early November Jamal Othman Aswad’s two brothers, Mohammed and
Khaled, managed to return to their neighbourhood to recover the bodies of those killed in the air strike which
had destroyed their building four months earlier. They hired a bulldozer to remove the rubble of the
destroyed building and found Jamal’s body. This came as a shock; the brothers had been under the
impression that Jamal had been rescued and they had been searching for him, in vain, in hospitals in areas
under SDF control.
The brothers had also been searching for their younger brother, Ammar, who had sought refuge in Manbij
but had managed to return to Raqqa immediately after the strike. He made the perilous journey with the
help of an SDF recruit he knew from Raqqa who told him that their building had been destroyed and that his
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Interview with Taha Mohammed Othman, Raqqa, 8 February 2018.