Human rights monitor says nine children were among victims, who were trying to cross Euphrates river to escape fighting

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A Russian airstrike has killed 38 civilians as they tried to cross the Euphrates river to escape fighting in eastern Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province, a monitor has said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain, said nine children were among those killed as they tried to cross the river aboard rafts, escaping from areas where Russian-backed regime forces are battling the Islamic State group.

The monitor, which earlier gave a toll of 20 in the strikes, said the dead included an Iraqi family.

Deir ez-Zor borders Iraq and civilians have fled into the province to escape the battles against Isis in their own country.

Two campaigns are being fought against Isis in east Deir ez-Zor, with the one on the western side of the Euphrates river, which slices diagonally across the province, led by Syrian troops and backed by their ally Russia.

The second is being fought by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, on the eastern bank of the river.

The Observatory relies on a network of sources inside Syria, and says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.

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The group has reported hundreds of civilians killed in operations against Isis in Deir ez-Zor and neighbouring Raqqa province, where the SDF is fighting with US support to capture the former jihadist bastion of Raqqa city.

On Tuesday, the Observatory said a US-led coalition strike in Raqqa had killed at least 18 civilians.

The coalition says it takes all measures possible to avoid civilian casualties and that it investigates each credible allegation.

Last month, it acknowledged the deaths of more than 700 civilians in its strikes in Syria and Iraq since 2014.

Russia has not acknowledged any civilian deaths from its strikes since its intervened in Syria’s war in 2015, and dismisses the Observatory’s reporting as biased.

The deaths in Deir ez-Zor on Wednesday prompted outrage from the opposition Syrian National Coalition, which described the incident as a “heinous crime”.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.