Gasping for life, the innocent victims of ‘gas attacks’ in Syria
BEWILDERED and afraid, these are some of the innocent victims of a suspected chemical attack in Syria.
Too young to understand the horrors around them, the toddlers huddle together under a blanket as they are treated at a makeshift hospital in the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta.
A three-year-old died and at least 13 other children suffered breathing difficulties after a regime warplane struck the region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A woman was also left in a critical condition. Two days after the UN security council called for a ceasefire, President Assad’s government continued its bombing onslaught of the Damascus suburb.
A doctor, known as Yaqub, who treated those affected, said he suspected ‘chemical weapons, probably a chlorine gas attack’. He added: ‘Most of the patients have chlorine odour on their clothes and their skin. Many have dyspnoea [breathing difficulties] and skin and eye irritations.’
Chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said the aim of chlorine is to ‘push people out of cellars and tunnels and into the open where they are susceptible to conventional bombs and bullets.’ Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday ordered daily ‘ humanitarian pauses’ in Eastern Ghouta between 9am and 2pm, from today.
In the Commons, Boris Johnson appeared to make the case for British air strikes against the Assad regime if there is proof of chemical weapons being used, saying the West must not ‘stand idly by’.