Team to search Douma for toxic evidence

THE HAGUE: Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are due to start work in Douma, outside the Syrian capital today. In addition to collecting samples, they will be looking for other clues to help determine whether banned toxins were used in an attack on April 7. The fact-finding mission will not assign blame.

Here is an overview of its objectives and challenges:

A priority will be collecting environmental and biomedical samples from victims and the scene of the attack. The samples will be returned to the OPCW’s main laboratory in the Netherlands. The samples are generally split, up to four times in some cases, and sent to independent national laboratories affiliated with the OPCW.

The inspectors are bound to a strict chain of custody procedure, which means they must be present when a sample is taken and it must remain in their possession.

By the time environmental samples are taken in Douma it will have been a week since the alleged attack. This makes it more difficult to collect evidence than a normal crime scene, where authorities often arrive within hours. The team will work as quickly as possible to collect any samples of chlorine and sarin – which it previously found to have been used in the civil war – or other poisonous chemicals.

Chlorine dissipates rapidly and in some cases is no longer traceable after a day. Other chemical compounds, such as sarin, might be found days or even weeks later. The inspectors will also be looking for other evidence, such as canisters, rocket or bomb fragments, impact sites and craters and will take photographs and video of them. The delivery mechanisms often contain traces of chemicals.

Witnesses have spoken of hearing the whistle of barrel bombs falling from the sky. These have been widely used in the Syrian war, as previously documented by the OPCW’s fact-finding mission. Some carried canisters of chlorine and an explosive charge. These, if found, could be proof of a chemical attack.

The team will interview emergency responders, survivors, medical staff who treated victims and other witnesses to determine whether they suffered from symptoms associated with chemicals. These might include suffocating, foaming at the mouth, constricted pupils, convulsions and involuntary urination or defecation.

Fighting between government forces and rebels in Douma, a town in the Ghouta region east of Damascus, has ceased, but security risks remain. Inspectors have twice come under fire while trying to get to the site of chemical weapons sites in Syria.

In August 2013, they were shot at by a sniper near eastern Ghouta, where hundreds of people had been gassed with the nerve agent sarin. In May 2014, a convoy of vehicles carrying inspectors was hit by explosives and automatic gunfire while travelling to the northern town of Kafr Zita. They were briefly held captive. No one was seriously wounded either attack. No culprits were identified. – Reuters/African News Agency