Press.
voanews.com
Monitors and civil defense workers
alleged Tuesday that Syrian government or Russian warplanes carried
out a toxic gas attack on a rebel-held town in northern Syria, killing dozens
of people and injuring hundreds more. The Union of Medical Care and Relief
Organizations, a coalition of Western humanitarian and medical organizations,
put the death toll at 100 with more than 350 injured.
Syrian opposition activists described the attack as among the worst in
the country's brutal six-year civil war and the main political opposition
group, the Syrian National Coalition, dubbed it a “horrifying massacre.” Russia
has "categorically denied" any role in the attack. Syria's government
denied using chemical weapons against civilians.
The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting discuss the
incident on Wednesday morning. The footage appeared to show a young girl hooked
up to a ventilator and the bodies of several children being covered with a
blanket.
In other videos, medics can be be seen trying to resuscitate a small
girl and assisting adults struggling with breathing difficulties. One picture
showed rescue workers placing the body of a man into the back of a truck.
Locals say they expect the death toll to rise.
fter the attack, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a
London-based monitoring group that gathers information from activists on the
ground. The group said it had received initial reports of the attack from
medics in the town. The Observatory
said at least 11 children are among the dead.
The French news agency (AFP) later reported from one of its journalists
in Khan Sheikhoun that a missile slammed into a hospital where some of the
victims were being treated, bringing rubble down on medics as they struggled to
treat victims.
US reacts
In Washington, White House spokesman Sean Spicer condemned the
"intolerable attack" and said the U.S. holds the regime of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad responsible. He also said the "heinous
actions" of the regime were the result of "weakness" by the
previous administration of Barack Obama.
The attack, which caught many of the town’s residents sleeping in their
beds, came on the eve of a major international meeting in Brussels on the
future of Syria hosted by the European Union’s chief foreign affairs official,
Federica Mogherini.The Assad government has repeatedly denied that its
warplanes carry out raids with chemical weapons. Last week, officials in the
Syrian capital dismissed all such allegations as “devoid of truth.”
Government-owned media outlets suggested Tuesday that the airstrike may
have hit a rebel chemical weapons factory or stockpile. The Syrian National
Coalition called Tuesday for an emergency session of the United Nations
Security Council, blaming the airstrikes on the “regime of the criminal
Bashar.” In a statement, it said government warplanes fired missiles carrying
poisonous gas. The coalition urged U.N. officials to "open an immediate
investigation" and take the necessary measures to ensure the officials,
perpetrators and supporters are held accountable.
The reported attack on Khan Sheikhoun to the west of Aleppo and south of
the city of Idlib, the provincial capital, is the third claimed chemical
weapons attack in just over a week in Syria. Another two blamed on the Syrian
government were reported in Hama province, not far from Khan Sheikhoun.
Chemicals used
What chemical agent was used is not clear, but some opposition websites
said highly toxic sarin gas may have been employed. Some medics working on the
victims also pointed to sarin as the agent most likely used.
“We have no doubt that this is a sarin attack,” said Dr. Shajul Islam, a
British medic working in a clinic, which received three of the victims. He
posted a video on Twitter showing the victims with pinpoint pupils, which were
unresponsive when light was shone on their eyes.
Omer Idlibi, a member of the opposition group Syria Revolutionaries,
told VOA's Kurdish service "all the symptoms from the victims point to
sarin gas.” "The medical situation is very bad, due to the lack of
hospitals and because the regime targeted all the field hospitals used for
treating victims," he added.
A U.N. investigation found credible evidence that sarin was used in
August 2013 attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta that killed hundreds of
civilians. In most alleged chemical weapons attacks since then, the agent
thought to be used most often has been chlorine.
Rebel groups have also been accused in the past of using chlorine in
rocket attacks, and the Islamic State terror group has been blamed for a
mustard gas attack in Syria. British
medical expert David Nott told Britain’s Sky News he was unsure whether the
agent used was chlorine or sarin but said if the latter, he would expect the
death toll to climb rapidly.
New York-based Human Rights Watch accused the Syrian government of
mounting eight chlorine gas attacks on insurgent-controlled areas during the
final weeks of the battle for Aleppo last year.
A joint investigation by the United Nations and the international
chemical weapons watchdog blamed the Syrian government for at least three
attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving chlorine gas.Rebel groups walked out of
Russian-brokered peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan earlier this month in
protest at what they said were ongoing violations of a cease-fire. Idlib
province is one of the last redoubts of anti-Assad rebels and the United
Nations estimates there are nearly a million displaced Syrians in the province,
many from Aleppo.