With Assad poised to strike, gas masks made of party cups handed to children
SYRIAN children are being handed party cups to use as makeshift gas masks amid fears of an imminent chemical weapons attack.
Millions of civilians in the country’s last major rebel stronghold are braced for an assault by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in what could mark the final battle of the brutal civil war.
They are preparing food, emergency supplies and digging shelters ahead of the expected Russian-backed offensive.
Photographs show colourful party cups filled with cotton and charcoal being fitted to a child’s face with a tightened plastic bag on the head, in a village in Idlib province, northwest Syria.
Hudhayfa al-Shahad, 20, who fitted one of the masks, said: ‘We are preparing what little we can: Small primitive masks are on our children’s mouths in case we are hit with chemicals.’
He was speaking from south of Idlib city, where he shares a house with his pregnant wife, three children and around 15 other people.
His construction worker brother, Ahmed Abdulkarim al-Shahad, 35, said the family had dug under a vine-covered courtyard to shelter from any bombardment. ‘Military preparations are in full swing,’ he said. ‘We civilians have started preparing caves.’
The province is the last major bastion of the groups trying to overthrow Assad for the past seven years. Around three million people live in the region and there are fears of a refugee crisis if they head towards Turkey.
Washington has issued a strong warning to Syria’s government against using chemical weapons.
Their use is likely to prompt a military response from the US, UK and France after they launched a salvo of rockets against Syrian targets following a previous attack. A British defence source said they believed an assault on Idlib was ‘imminent’ after seeing a build up of Russian warships. The source added: ‘It will cause a massive humanitarian crisis and civilians will be indiscriminately killed without a shadow of a doubt.’
Assad has massed his army and allied forces and Russian planes have joined his rebels as a prelude to a possible assault. A meeting yesterday of leaders of Assad’s supporters Russia and Iran, and the rebels’ ally, Turkey, failed to agree a ceasefire.
Backed by Russian air power, Assad has in recent years taken back one rebel enclave after another. Idlib and its surroundings are now the only significant area where armed opposition to Damascus remains.