Documentation of the Killing of Kurdish Civilian Ouriya Abdul Hanan Horo as a Result of the Shelling of Khaled Fajr Hospital in the Sheikh Maqsoud Neighborhood of Aleppo
On 8 January 2026, Kurdish citizen Ouriya Abdul Hanan Horo, a member of the staff working at Khaled Fajr Hospital, was killed while performing his professional duties, as a result of shelling carried out by the forces of the Syrian Transitional Government, which targeted the hospital located in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood of Aleppo city, northern Syria.
Ouriya Abdul Hanan Horo was a civilian citizen belonging to the Kurdish component, forcibly displaced from the Afrin region in northern Syria since 2018. He originated from the village of Sheikh Khurz in the countryside of Afrin. He was buried on 9 January 2026, and condolence ceremonies were held in the village of Qastal Miqdad, due to the continued control of Turkish forces over his original village of Sheikh Khurz.
The killing of Ouriya Abdul Hanan Horo occurred in the context of the military attack carried out by the forces of the temporary authority represented by “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” against the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh in Aleppo city, during the period from 6 to 10 January 2026.
As a result of this shelling and military attack, all hospitals and health centers, both public and private, ceased operations in the two neighborhoods at that time, including private hospitals located in the Ashrafieh neighborhood, leading to an almost complete paralysis in the provision of medical services to the civilian population.
In a similar incident, on the evening of Thursday, 8 January 2026, a group of armed individuals affiliated with the forces of the temporary authority, “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” carried out the extrajudicial killing of two Kurdish citizens working within the medical staff of Othman Hospital in the Ashrafieh neighborhood of Aleppo city. The victims were Adnan Arif Othman, the brother of the director of Othman Hospital, and Ali Hanif Othman. Both originated from the village of Ain al-Hajar Saghir in the countryside of Afrin. The two victims belonged to the Kurdish component and were employed in the medical field at the same hospital.
These incidents fall within the framework of serious human rights violations, including the targeting of medical facilities and the killing of medical personnel and civilians, constituting a clear violation of the principles of international humanitarian law, which prohibit attacks on medical facilities and their staff and obligate parties to the conflict to protect civilians during armed conflict.
