Doctors in Syria ‘embarrassed’ that UK is not doing more
There was little that could be done by the time Dr Osama Abu El Ezz arrived at the scene of the nerve agent attack on his family’s village of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib, north-west Syria, in April last year.
He remembers the vacant eyes, the frothing mouths and the chests of the dying victims heaving as they struggled to breathe.
Most of all, he remembers the feeling of anger that followed when he and his colleagues were accused, by detractors, of framing president Bashar al-assad’s forces for the attack.
“The videos and testimonies were not enough,” Dr Abu Ezz, a general surgeon at Atareb hospital, told
The Daily Telegraph. “It was very upsetting that anyone could think we would do this to our own people.”
On Turkey’s border with Syria, leading British experts have been training medics from the lastremaining rebel stronghold of Idlib for a possible repeat. They say that, should there be a next time, there will be no such doubt over who is responsible.
Following the fall of the south of the country, the regime is expected to turn its attention to the northern province, where 2.7million civilians are bracing themselves for what looks set to be the deadliest battle of the war.
“In the coming months, we are expecting massive bombardment, the targeting of hospitals, bunker-buster bombs and chemical weapons.
“There’s nothing the government won’t do to capture this last bit of territory,” says Hamish de Brettongordon, formerly of the UK Chemical Biological, Radiological and Nuclear centre and who is now advising NGOS.
“This time we’ll be ready. There will be no denying the evidence,” Mr de Bretton-gordon tells the doctors gathered at the hotel conference room in Gaziantep, southern Turkey. “We want Assad to know that.”
He distributes 12 chemical testing kits to the medics to take back with them into Syria.
He demonstrates to the doctors, who have been granted special permission by Turkey to enter the country for the three-day course, the process of gathering and preserving evidence.
Biomedical samples, ideally taken from victims who were within 1,000ft of the site of impact, must be placed in a specimen pot inside a plastic bag, which should then be tied in a gooseneck knot. This must be repeated with two more bags over the first, to prevent any leak. Each kit is equipped with a digital camera to document the chain of custody, which must be unbroken to satisfy international chemical weapons investigators.
“The evidence that was gathered by the OPCW [Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] over the past year has been of poor quality, almost to the point of being inadmissible,” says Mr de Brettongordon.
The problem on several occasions has been the difficulty of getting timely access from the government to besieged rebel areas where the attacks took place.
He believes a nerve agent was likely used alongside chlorine in the recent deadly chemical attack on Douma in Eastern Ghouta, but that the material had badly degraded in the two weeks it took for inspectors to get to the site.
Unlike in Eastern Ghouta, which was surrounded by government forces, Mr de Bretton-gordon’s kits would be able to make it out of Idlib to Turkey within a few hours, due to its proximity to the border.
Some of the doctors in the room question the merit of collecting evidence when so little has been done with the OPCW’S previous findings.
“Without being too cynical, the only thing the UK, the US and the UN is acting on now is chemical weapons,” Mr de Bretton-gordon says. “We are embarrassed the UK is not doing more, but that is why we’re here. Assad uses chemicals because he sees he gets away with it. But he will act with complete impunity if we do nothing.”
Britain, spurred by the nerve agent poisoning on its own soil, last month led an effort at the UN to grant the OPCW the power to assign blame for attacks using banned toxic munitions. This means the body will now be able to report not just what substance was used but who used it. The move will aid UN war crimes investigators, who are collating findings by the OPCW, among other pieces of evidence, for future prosecution.
“For Syrians, it is better to die from chemicals than from barrel bombs. At least there is no trauma, no blood and it happens relatively quickly,” says Dr Abu Mohammed, a surgeon at Darkush hospital, who uses a pseudonym for his safety.
“Plus their deaths are the only ones that are remembered by the world. Maybe this documentation won’t change anything today,” says Dr Abu Mohammed. “But in 10 years, 20 years’ time it will be a record in history; a stain on Assad that can never be washed away.”
Mr de Bretton-gordon was joined in Gaziantep by Dr David Nott, a leading surgeon who has been training doctors in Syria since the war began, as well as MPS Alison Mcgovern, co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group Friends of Syria, and Bob Seely, member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
The doctors will deliver a letter, which is supported by the MPS, today to Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, calling for the UK to “redraw” and reinforce its red line on chemical weapons in Syria, and commit to counter-striking any aircraft that delivers them.
“There are millions of people in Idlib. If we see another Aleppo, the consequences will be horrific,” Ms Mcgovern told The Telegraph. “Britain – and our international community – must act to protect human life.”
Aid agencies fear an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in Idlib, which is home to millions of civilians displaced by fighting in other areas of the country.
There will be no evacuation deals in Idlib – as there had been in Aleppo, Homs, Ghouta and the south – as there is nowhere left for residents to be sent.
The border Idlib shares with Turkey has been closed for several years, and Ankara, which has taken in more than three million refugees, has said it is not prepared to take any more.
The doctors of Idlib say they feel abandoned by the allies that once protected them, sold out by the backroom deals made between the US and Russia. “In a few months, it will be our turn,” says Dr Abu Mohammed. “After the south fell and the US did nothing, it is clear what our fate is.”