Syria ‘gas attack’ kills 58 people
ASUSPECTED chemical attack killed at least 58 civilians in rebel-held northwestern Syria yesterday, a monitor said, prompting widespread outrage and calls for action.
The attack in the town of Khan Sheikhun also left dozens suffering respiratory problems and symptoms including vomiting, fainting and foaming at the mouth, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Hours later, airstrikes hit a hospital in the town where doctors were treating victims of the attack, an AFP correspondent said, bringing down rubble on top of medics as they worked.
The incident brought swift international condemnation, with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault demanding an emergency UN Security Council meeting on the “monstrous” attack.
The EU’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said President Bashar al-Assad’s government bore “primary responsibility” for the attack, while Syria’s opposition warned it “calls the political process into question”, and demanded a UN probe.
If confirmed, it would be one of the worst chemical attacks since the start of Syria’s civil war.
The Observatory said the attack on a residential part of Khan Sheikhun came in the early hours of yesterday morning, when a warplane carried out strikes that released “toxic gas”. It said 11 children were among the dead, with at least 160 injured, and that many people were dying even after arriving at medical facilities.
The monitor could not confirm the nature of the gas, and said the strike was likely carried out by government warplanes.
Russia’s military, which has been fighting in support of Assad’s government since September 2015, denied carrying out any strikes near the town.
An AFP journalist in Khan Sheikhun saw a young girl, a woman and two elderly people dead at a hospital, with foam still visible around their mouths.
Doctors at the facility were using basic equipment, some not even wearing lab coats, and attempting to revive patients who were not breathing. A father carried his dead little girl, her lips blueish and her dark curls visible, wrapped in a blue sheet.
As doctors worked, a warplane circled overhead, striking first near the facility and then hitting it twice, bringing rubble down on medics and patients.
It was not clear how many people may have been injured or killed in the strikes.
In a video posted online by Idlib’s local medical directorate, a doctor described patient symptoms as he treated a child.
“We are seeing unconscious- ness, convulsions, pinpoint pupils, severe foaming, and lack of oxygen,” he said.
Syria’s leading opposition group, the National Coalition, blamed Assad’s government for the attack and demanded the UN “open an immediate investigation” and hold those responsible to account. “Failure to do so will be understood as a message of blessing to the regime for its actions,” it said.
Syria’s government officially joined the Chemical Weapons Convention and turned over its chemical arsenal in 2013, as part of a deal to avert US military action.
The attack cast new doubt on the peace process, said the Syrian opposition’s chief negotiator Mohamad Sabra.
“If the United Nations cannot deter the regime from carrying out such crimes, how can it achieve a process that leads to political transition in Syria?” he said.
Donor nations were meeting yesterday in Brussels to discuss Syria’s future, amid confusion over Washington’s position on Assad’s fate.
But on Monday, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called Assad a “war criminal” and “a hindrance to peace” and said the US would not accept him standing for reelection.