Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian Civil Defense group, told Al Jazeera that 33 civilians, including 18 women and 10 children, were brought to a local hospital after the attack in the town of Saraqeb.
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A Youtube video released by the group shows men being given oxygen masks, in what they say is the aftermath of the attack.
Syria Civil Defence workers, who went to the scene of the attack, said they suspected the gas was chlorine but could not verify that.
“Medium-sized barrels fell containing toxic gasses”, a spokesman for the group said.
Rebel fire killed at least nine civilians, including three children, in the government-held portion of Aleppo, while presumed Russian or Syrian government airstrikes killed at least 11 in Atareb, a town to Aleppo’s west, activists and government media reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said fighters were killed on both sides in battles around the southern al-Ramouseh and al-Amerieh neighborhoods of the city, but did not have exact figures.
The Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in Idlib province while returning to the Russian air base on Syria’s coast after delivering humanitarian goods to the city of Aleppo, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. President Bashar al-Assad has denied using chemical weapons during the country’s ongoing civil war, despite strong evidence to the contrary.
Another prominent rights group, Amnesty International, has accused Russian Federation and the Syrian government of “deliberately attacking health facilities in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”. Fighting in the area had recently intensified as rebels attempted to break a government siege of the city of Aleppo.
This agreement however only covered Sarin, Mustard and VX nerve gas, alongside the precursor chemicals which could be used to make them.
In July, two Russian pilots were killed when their helicopter was shot down east of the city of Palmyra by Islamic State. The report also claimed that more than 30 people had suffered from the gas.
The shelling comes after rebel groups launched an offensive Sunday, in a push toward the area to try and break the siege that has choked the area.
The assault began on Sunday and is meant to ease the encirclement of the opposition-held east of the city.
On Saturday, state news agency SANA said dozens of families evacuated eastern districts in Aleppo, amid reports that the rebels prevented many civilians from leaving.
He says the Russians “died heroically because they tried to move the aircraft away so to minimize losses on the ground”.
The latest broadside by Kerry against Russian Federation comes as think tank the Royal United Services Institute released a report on Monday 1 August saying that western policy-makers needed to work between Russian Federation and Iran to resolve the conflict in Syria. They believed chlorine gas was used, but could not confirm it.
According to the BBC, Saraqeb may have been hit by a chemical attack in 2013.
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Neighborhoods in the city have been under siege for as long as 80 consecutive days according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.
