Chemical attack alleged
BEIRUT: Dozens of people were reportedly killed in a suspected chemical attack on the eastern Ghouta city of Douma yesterday.
Hours after the reports of the chemical attack, the Syrian Government said it would start negotiations with the rebel group controlling the city, Jaish alIslam.
The group claims the Government carried out the attack, in which at least 49 people were killed, according to a medical relief organisation and Douma’s civil defence rescue service.
Damascus has denied mounting any such attack and says the rebels, encircled and massively outgunned, are collapsing and spreading false news.
‘‘Jaish alIslam terrorists have requested negotiations with the Syrian state, which will start the talks within two hours from now,’’ state TV cited an official source as saying.
Syrian state news agency SANA said Jaish alIslam was making ‘‘chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab army’’.
The US State Department said reports of mass casualties from the alleged chemical weapons attack were ‘‘horrifying’’ and would, if confirmed, ‘‘demand an immediate response by the international community’’.
In a joint statement, relief organisation the Syrian American Medical Society (Sams) and Douma’s civil defence service said medical centres received more than 500 cases of people suffering breathing difficulties in Douma on Saturday, frothing from the mouth and smelling of chlorine.
One of the victims was dead on arrival and six died later, it said. Civil defence volunteers reported more than 42 cases of people dead at their homes showing the same symptoms.
The lifeless bodies of around a dozen children, women and men, some of them with foam at the mouth, were shown in one video circulated by activists. ‘‘Douma city, April 7 . . . there is a strong smell here,’’ a voice can be heard saying.
Reuters could not verify the reports. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people in Douma had died of suffocation caused by smoke from conventional weapons dropped by the Government. A total of 70 people suffered breathing difficulties, it said, but it could not confirm whether chemical weapons had been used.
US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauret recalled a 2017 sarin gas attack in northwestern Syria the West and the United Nations blamed on Assad’s Government.
‘‘The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately,’’ she said. ‘‘The United States calls on Russia to end this unmitigated support immediately and work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks.’’
The Syrian Government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons during the conflict.
ProSyrian opposition Orient television reported negotiations to reach a final agreement over Douma were under way between Jaish alIslam and the Russians,
There was no immediate comment from Jaish alIslam.