On the evening of Thursday, 8 January 2026, an entire civilian family was killed as a result of indiscriminate shelling that targeted the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the city of Aleppo. The shelling was carried out by the forces of the interim authority “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” resulting in a massacre that claimed the lives of seven civilians from one family, including three children.
Details of the victims:
According to the available information, the shelling resulted in the killing of:
Amin Rasho (the father).
Noura Hassan (Amin’s wife).
Zeinab Amin Rasho (Amin’s daughter).
Sharfeen Hassan (the wife of Amin’s son).
The children of Sharfeen Hassan were also killed, namely:
Noura Rasho.
Mira Rasho.
Amin Rasho.
The family originates from the Afrin countryside and has been forcibly displaced from the Afrin area since 2018. They were residing in the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood.
The massacre occurred as a result of shelling that targeted inhabited residential areas in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods, within the framework of indiscriminate attacks that struck civilians without distinction and led to a large number of victims from a single family.
This incident comes in the context of a military escalation witnessed by the area from Tuesday, 6 January 2026 until the evening of Saturday, 10 January 2026, following the interim authority’s control over the entire area after clashes with local Kurdish forces. During this period, the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood was subjected to intense and repeated shelling, accompanied by widespread violations including massacres, field executions, and an arrest campaign targeting hundreds of Kurdish civilians, particularly men, carried out by the interim authorities represented by “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.”
This attack is considered part of a broader pattern of serious violations that have affected the civilian population in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, amid the absence of any effective protection for civilians during the ongoing military operations.
