Three local civilians fishing on the bank of the Euphrates River in rural Aleppo governorate were killed by a sniper on Thursday (February 3), with other locals retrieving their bodies from the river.

"The bodies of three young men were found in the Euphrates River near the contact lines between the Qasd [PKK/SDF militias] and the Syrian regime, on the side of the city of Khafsa," a local source told SY24, with the Syrian Network for Human Rights identifying the men as Muhammad Ahmad al Abdullah al Theyban, Abdullah Ahmad al Abdullah al Theyban and Muhammad Nour al Hajji al Dakhil, aged 34, 33 and 29 respectively.

The three young men came from the villages of Rasm al-Abed Mastataha and Kasra, both in the Khafsa district in the Manbij area, which is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Another local source told the SY24 news outlet that "The Iranian militias are spreading in the vicinity of the Khafsa area, and they were the ones who killed the three fishermen."

Media activist, Ahmed Al-Shibli, confirmed to SY24 that in 2020, “106 civilians were documented killed, being slaughtered with knives and firing squad by Iranian militias in the countryside of Palmyra, Hama, Aleppo, Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, during the past 2020.”

The areas where Iranian militias are present in eastern Syria are among the locations with the highest rates of killings and kidnappings of civilians.

Report from: SY24, Syrian Network for Human Rights

2017 photo showing fishermen in Jarablus from: Enab Baladi