An airstrike in the fighter-held town of Maaret Al-Numan in northwestern Syria on October 18 killed at least 44 people, reports said. “We have received at least 44 dead bodies, many were children,” doctor Nader Jaffar Sharhoub said, as he rushed to treat the wounded in a makeshift hospital set up in a school. “There are some 30 people still missing.” Jets began overflying and bombarding Maaret Al-Numan, located on the main Damascus-Aleppo highway, in the early hours of the morning, targeting the strategic town and its periphery.
The strike on the apartment block left scenes of horror, with body parts – arms, legs and horribly mutilated trunks – being pulled from the rubble, placed on blankets and then driven away in pick-up trucks. Residents, their faces covered in white dust, screamed and wailed as they searched for their loved ones among the rubble. Fighters opened fire into the sky with heavy machineguns as they tried to down the warplanes streaking overhead. They managed to hit a helicopter gunship with gunfire near Maaret Al-Numan, causing it to explode and crash.