The city of Ma’arat Ma’sareen lies in the countryside of Idlib’s province, 30km south of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey.
At exactly 9:40 on Tuesday 30/8/2016, war planes believed to be Russian according to activist reports, launched one air strike with several missiles containing cluster bombs on the Haal market of the city. This market is considered the largest in north Idlib, and is a primary point for the dispensation of vegetables across the area.
At that time, the market was crowded with buyers and sellers. The bombing caused a massacre in which seven of those in the market square were killed, in addition to the great material damage which was caused to vendor carriages.
After the air strike had taken place, and in less than four minutes, the civil defence team had arrived at the site of the massacre. They had been close to the area when the bombing took place.
The team began to transfer the injured to the Mohammed Badh hospital in the city. From there, the cases were dispersed across several hospitals. The civil defence team also carried the dead and handed them over to their families.
Six people were immediately killed when the massacre took place. The areas they were from included:
- three victims were from Harbanoosh village, Idlib
- one victim was from Tadmur (Palmyra), Homs.
- one victim was from the city of Homs
- one victim was from Qabtan al-Jabal, Aleppo
Twenty-three people were injured. The following are some of their names:
- Omar Tahoon
- Mohammed Mustafa Ghaliah
- Mohammed Nawfal
- Turki Shanbashli
- Hussein al-Mohammed
- Bashar Bakri
- Hussein Khidr Mohammed Ali
- Mahmoud Junaydi
- Imad Junaydi
- Abdu Bajar
- Mohammed al-Sheikh
- Abdul Latif Rihabi
- Mohammed Uweid
- Omar Khidr
- Ammar Khidr
- Mohammed Khidr
- Khalid al-Mash’al
- Ahmed Hussein Ramadan
- Hussein al-Mustafa
- Mohammed Khair
- Fahd Jumuah al-Mahmoud
On the morning of Tuesday 6th September, Ahmed al-Shanab, who had been injured in the massacre, died due to injuries he sustained in the massacre, raising the massacre’s death toll to seven people.