Aleppo family of 6 killed in ‘chemical attack’

JAMAICA - “How did we get here as a nation? How did we get here where people are so cold?” were questions posed by Father Carl Clarke that resonated most with mourners who filled the Holy Trinity Cathedral to celebrate the life of 14-year-old Nicholas Christopher Francis Saturday. The ninth grade Jamaica College student was savagely murdered on October 26 on a bus, when he refused to relinquish to a robber what Clarke, his priest, described as a cheap watch and banga phone. The police last month reported that after Nicholas boarded the bus, a man tried to rob him of his watch and other valuables. The young JC student was stabbed several times when he resisted his attacker and was rushed to hospital by the driver of the bus.

Quacie Hart was later charged with the murder after he turned himself in to the police days after the incident. Hart was charged by the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse earlier this month for breaches of the Sexual Offences Act. It is alleged that he was involved in a relationship with a minor.

Clarke, in his homily, called for Jamaicans to re-examine our callousness as a society Saturday. The body of Nicholas Francis, “the silent hero”, was laid to rest at a family plot in St Andrew.

(Jamaica observer) SYRIA - A family of six was killed in a suspected chlorine gas attack in war-ravaged eastern Aleppo yestereday, as the death toll in a six-day blitz neared 300, a monitor and activists said.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said preliminary reports indicated a married couple and their four children were killed in one of many airstrikes to hit the al-Sakhour neighborhood in Aleppo’s besieged east. The group said chlorine gas was used in the bombardment. The Aleppo Media Center (AMC) activist group also reported that the family was killed and posted a photo of the aftermath on Twitter. The AMC said a barrel bomb containing chlorine gas was dropped on the neighborhood from helicopters. CNN has viewed a video purporting to show the aftermath of the attack but cannot independently verify the use of the toxic gas.

A UN investigation in late August found that chemical weapons had been used in Syria, both by the national air force and ISIS militants. It found two instances where regime forces had used chlorine as a chemical weapon, and one where ISIS had used mustard gas.

(CNN)