Medical staff members described seeing people with symptoms such as shortness of breath, coughing, sneezing, irritation of the eyes, nausea and in some cases respiratory failure. United Nations experts said Tuesday more investigations are ongoing into alleged chemical attacks earlier this year, including in Aleppo.
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Barrel bombs of chlorine gas were dropped on a residential neighborhood in Aleppo, causing at least 80 people – many of them children – to suffer from breathing difficulties.
In London Wednesday, Syrian opposition leaders were set to unveil plans for a political transition ahead of a Friends of Syria meeting of foreign ministers. This ghastly scene followed what aid groups and witnesses say was a chemical attack by the Syrian government in the rebel-held eastern half of the city.
Russian Federation is reportedly stalling on the implementation of a ceasefire plan put forth weeks ago.
Government forces put east Aleppo under siege on Sunday for a second time since July after advancing against rebels on the city’s outskirts.
A team of worldwide inspectors determined in late August that the Syrian government and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants were responsible for chemical attacks carried out in 2014 and 2015.
“There were also many civilian casualties from the attack that was sacked from a jet”, said Shimale, who was reporting from the scene.
The attack was the latest in the months-long offensive by the Syrian government, with Russian backing, to wrest the city from rebel control. The Islamic State is not a player in the city. No deaths were reported in the attack. It also shared a video of children soaked in water wearing oxygen masks to breathe.
The group said more than 200 bombs were dropped on Aleppo in 24 hours.
During the attack, many civilians in the surrounding area fell to the ground as a result of the force of the missile blast, Shimale said. This area is full of civilians. The city has always been split between government and rebel control but the Syrian military, backed by the Russian air force, is seeking to recapture the entire city in what be its most vital strategic victory in the conflict if achieved.
“It could be used as a weapon deliberately to induce fear and terror in a target populace fairly well habituated to conventional attacks”, Kaszeta says.
A Syrian military source denied on Wednesday accusations that the army had launched a chlorine gas attack on a rebel-held neighborhood of Aleppo.
After months of relatively fruitless Syrian ceasefire talks brokered by the United Nations, the US and Russian officials are at another diplomatic crossroads. They are the “poor man’s chemical weapon”.
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But the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on whether to impose sanctions on the government in line with a September 2013 resolution authorizing sanctions that can be militarily enforced for any use of chemical weapons in Syria.
