“WAR OF ANNIHILATION”
DEVASTATING TOLL ON CIVILIANS, RAQQA – SYRIA
Amnesty International
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shoe shop on the corner of the main road. During the days, we would spend most of the time in the
cellar but we would go in and out between the basement and our old family home across the road,
to use the bathroom and kitchen. We had to, as there were no such facilities in the cellar.
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As the battle was approaching, the two youngest brothers, Khaled and Ammar, left the area. Both men paid
IS-affiliated smugglers in order
to leave, as this was the only way out. Jamal and Mohammed also took
precautions, sending their mother and their wives and children to safety in Manbij.
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They decided to stay on
to safeguard their business and the building they had worked so hard to construct. They knew that if they
left, IS fighters would steal their property and likely make use of the building, putting it at risk of coalition
strikes.
Amal Othman, 13, and her brothers Ammar, 8 and Mahmoud, 17; and Jamal Aswad, 41 – four of the eight victims killed in a Coalition air
strike on 28 June 2017 in Raqqa. © Private
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Interview with Mohammed Aswad, Raqqa, 7 and 8 February 2018.
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A city 140km north-west of Raqqa which had been previously recaptured from IS and was under the control of the SDF.
“WAR OF ANNIHILATION”
DEVASTATING TOLL ON CIVILIANS, RAQQA – SYRIA
Amnesty International
18
As Jamal and Mohammed took shelter from the shelling in the cellar, they were joined by neighbours, who
were unable to leave the city and felt vulnerable in their less sturdy homes.
Umm Ibrahim, a 38-year-old widowed mother of two, who lived a few streets south-west of the Aswad
building, told Amnesty International:
I spent several nights in the Aswad’s cellar with my children. Daesh and the Kurds were fighting
each other over our heads and my children were so scared but our home is an Arabic house,
which provides no protection from bullets, let alone from mortars and missiles. We felt safer in the
cellar and also safer being together with other people. After several days we went back home to
change our clothes. Some of my neighbours said that the Kurds had got closer and we could try to
run to them. We went with them and managed to reach them safely.
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IS fighters were in the area at the time, though not in the immediate vicinity of the Aswad’s building.
According to neighbours, IS fighters were mostly staying in and around the Taqua mosque, a few blocks
north-east of the Aswads’ building. Well aware that IS fighters could enter houses at will and commandeer
buildings to use as sniper positions, the Aswad brothers had taken counter-measures. As Mohammed told
Amnesty International:
Daesh did not come here to our street, but if they had it would have been impossible for them to go
up to the roof or to enter the building at all without our knowledge. We had locked all doors and
blocked access to the two staircases going up from the ground floor with table tops and pallets. We
were going in and out of the cellar all day and after sunset we stayed down in the cellar.
As the building was new and facilities had not yet been installed, those sheltering in the basement would go
across the road to the Aswad’s old family house to cook and use the toilet. As Mohammed told Amnesty
International:
We slept in the basement for around 20 days, from 15 Ramadan [10 June 2017] until the air strike
occurred. We slept there every night, even during Eid. Someone brought us bread. We kept
thinking ‘In a couple of days it’ll all be over; the SDF will come for us today or tomorrow.’ In all that
time the building was never hit.
The day before Eid there were five or six other families in the basement with us, then most of them
left. Only Abu Mahmoud stayed with his wife and children. I told Abu Mahmoud that he and his
family should try to leave as well but he said ‘what will be with you will be with me’. I stayed to
protect our home and livelihood; our shop was closed and we had stored all the merchandise in the
building and in our old family home. Abu Mahmoud thought we would all be safe in the cellar.
We spent much of the time in the basement during the day, but going in and out between the
basement and our old house across the small road, to use the bathroom and kitchen. We were
sure that the warplane would have photographed our street and would know our movements, as we
went to and from between the building and the old house across the street, and would have known
that we were civilians, families with children. During Eid the shelling had stopped. We thought that
that was the end of it.
THE AIR STRIKE
Mohammed was by the entrance to the cellar when the air strike occurred. It was around 7.30pm on “the
fourth day of Eid” (28 June 2017), he told Amnesty International:
We were about to have dinner. I know the time because my brother Jamal who was down in the
basement had just asked how long before sunset, when he could break his fast. Ramadan was
over but Jamal was fasting that day to make up for a day when he had not been able to fast due to
shelling in the neighbourhood. I was sitting on an empty oil tin by the basement door chatting to
Abu Mahmoud who was crouching next to me. His wife and children were down in the basement
with Jamal. When the sun went down we would shut the door and not leave the basement until the
morning. The strike came suddenly.
I lost consciousness for a while. When I came around it was dark and I discovered I was wounded
in my back and my leg. Maybe it was 9pm, I don’t know.
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Interview with Umm Ibrahim, Raqqa, 13 February 2018.