Two teenage girls have described the horror of the moment a drone struck their school in Syria, killing four friends.
Renda Bakr, 17, and Novin Ezzat, 18 heard the buzz of the unmanned craft but, after that, it was all a blur of screams and blood as a Turkish drone appears to have slaughtered four innocent Kurdish students in its ongoing strikes on Kurdish areas of Syria.
The two girls are students at a United Nations (UN)-backed boarding school in the village of Szamuka, 16 km west of the city of Al-Hasakah where they live and study.
They described the hours of terror in which four of their friends were killed.
The first sound of trouble was the whirring of a reconnaissance drone, prowling the sky and poised to rain hell on innocent civilians.
"There was so much fear, witnessing our friends being covered in blood, being burned, calling for their mums and suffering in pain. It was awful,” said Ms Bakr. “I don't even have time to think or process what was going on, I was too scared to even comprehend what was going on."
Ms Bakr and Ms Ezzat loved school and loved their friends, but now living there is tarnished by the memories of the attack.
Their injuries were much less worse than others, so they bundled people into makeshift ambulances and went to the hospital.
Wounded civilians sprawled bleeding in a clinic moments after the attack. Four teenagers - Ranya Eta, Dilan Ezedin, Zozan Zedan and Diyana Elo - died and the clinic is still caring for 11 injured students.
“We heard a drone and suddenly it attacked us. There was blood all over the place and we kept hearing explosives and piercing screams”, says Ms Ezzat, who now has shrapnel stuck in her leg.
The area has seen an uptick in bombardment in recent months and Human Rights Watch described the situation as “fraught with human rights abuses.”
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) claimed in a statement that a Turkish drone was responsible for the attack on the girls' education centre on Friday.
But the US coalition condemned the attack without naming Turkey as responsible.
Major General John Brennan, the US commander of the global coalition against ISIS, said in a statement late Friday: “On the evening of Aug. 18, an armed unmanned aerial system struck a group of teenaged girls playing volleyball who were active in a United Nations educational outreach program in Hasakah.
"Initial reports indicate that the strike killed four and wounded several others. On behalf of CJTF-OIR [Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve], I condemn this attack and any others that kill and injure civilians.
"Such acts are contrary to the laws of armed conflict, which require the protection of civilians. We extend our condolences to the families of those killed and sympathies to those injured."
The Turkish defence ministry said in a tweet on Friday that they killed five members of the Kurdish forces. It is not clear if the two reports are linked.
The United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, Mr Imran Riza, the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, Mr Muhannad Hadi and the UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Ms Adele Khodr expressed their "deep concern" on Saturday about the continuing escalation of hostilities in northern Syria.
The attack on northeast Syria came just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said all the steps they have taken in northern Syria “is a fight against terrorism.”
He continued: “The US cannot say that: ‘I have not fed terrorism.’ It is the US and the coalition forces that have fed terrorism in Syria in the first place; they have done it relentlessly and are still doing it."
A report from North Press said it is "the largest bases of the international coalition to combat the Islamic State (ISIS), which includes radar systems and American officers. Helicopters usually take off from the American base."
In Ankara’s eyes, US-backed forces — the People’s Protection Units (YPG and YPJ), part of the Syrian Democratic Forces — are “terrorist” groups with links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey says its military incursions into northern Syria are aimed at pushing back Kurdish-led forces and it has launched three cross-border operations into Syria since 2016, threatening a fourth in recent months.
“We know that states have not publicly given any approval to Turkey for carrying out attacks against the regions of North and East Syria, but on the other hand, they have given them permission to use UAVs against the above-mentioned regions”, Lawyer Muhammed Amin Neimi told Hawar News.
AANES said in its statement that the area of the attack was only two kilometres away from a US-coalition base, adding that the region had noticed increased "escalation of a systematic aggression” by Turkish forces.
“What shocks us is that this happened before the eyes of the coalition and they don't do anything”, Ms Bakr said.
The girls say they are in a state of grief and fear, with the threat of rape, death by drone, or other forms of warfare. While they hear shelling every day they have never witnessed anything so horrific, so close up.
According to a report of the Syria-based Rojava Information Centre (RIC), Turkish shelling and drone attacks have killed 62 people and injured 86 in one month to August.
On Friday, another suspected Turkish drone killed 14 civilians at a market in the northern Syrian city of al-Bab on Friday.
Major General Brennan warned yesterday that the “increase in military hostilities in northern Syria is creating chaos in a fragile region where the threat of ISIS remains present.”
"We call for immediate de-escalation from all parties and an end to activities that put at risk the significant battlefield gains the Coalition has made against ISIS," he added.
