Families’ plastic cup gas masks to protect them from Assad assault

FAMILIES in Idlib began fleeing from frontline villages and fashioning homemade gas masks yesterday in anticipation of an assault by Assad regime forces as early as this weekend.

The 2.5 million civilians trapped in Syria’s last rebel-held province are bracing for an attack to begin after a major summit between Iran, Russia and Turkey today.

Around 1,000 people fled from villages in southeast Idlib, close to where an attack by regime troops is likely to begin.

Other began making gas masks out of plastic cups in case Assad’s forces utilise chemical weapons.

“We are preparing what we can: small, primitive masks we can place on our children’s mouths in case we are hit with chemicals,” one father said.

Both the US and France have warned that they are prepared to launch strikes against the Assad regime again if it uses chemical weapons.

The fate of Idlib is likely to be decided at a three-way summit in Tehran today between Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia; Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran; and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey.

The UN expects an assault would only begin after the talks.

Jan Egeland, a UN adviser on Syria, acknowledged that there were terrorist groups in Idlib but said that did not justify an all-out attack on an area crowded with civilians. “There are more babies than terrorists,” he said.