On Tuesday, February, 4, 2014, Othman Bin Affan mosque in Hanano district was shelled with missiles. The mosque was partially destroyed, in addition to one neighboring house.
It is worth mentioning here that civilians had turned part of the mosque before that into a school for teaching children as number of schools have been destroyed because of the continuous and arbitrary shelling by the government forces of the areas that are no more under their control.
Mr. Shamel, an activist and a resident of the area told SNHR about the details of the incident:
“At about 9.30 AM I was at my home which is 50 M away from the mosque. I heard the sound of a military jet in the sky, and then I felt that it is closing down to our district. After that, there was a big explosion. The windows of my home were broken, and when I went out to see what happened, I saw that the house neighboring the mosque was destroyed. The family living in it was martyred. The injured were bleeding in the street. Destruction was everywhere. The house was hit with a missile from the military jet. In the same moments, we heard the sound of another explosion caused by a barrel bomb that hit close to Al Mala’ab area.
Damage in the mosque was only in the perimeter wall and the first floor. Thank God students were not at school. The school supervisors had asked students before not to come to school because of the shelling, which helped prevent a horrible massacre.”