The Civil Defense posted video on its Facebook page showing children using oxygen masks to breathe.
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Another video by the Aleppo Media Center shows a man laying nearly lifeless at the same hospital as medics try to pump oxygen into his lungs.
The Syrian regime has faced a series of accusations throughout the five-year conflict of indiscriminate bombings of civilians and use of sarin and chlorine gas, while Damascus has accused its opponents of also attacking civilians and using mustard gas. But Tuesday’s attack seems to be supported by details texted by a hospital to reporters including word that 71 patients had been treated for breathing difficulties and other symptoms of gas, and that their clothing smelled of chlorine.
The long-suffering northern city is one of the chief battlegrounds of the grinding war, with rebels and pro-government forces trading indiscriminate fire across populated neighborhoods. “The use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere and under any circumstances is unacceptable”. But the United Nations 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.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it was “concerned” Wednesday by the alleged use of chemical weapons in Aleppo, where dozens of people have reported cases of suffocation after dropping barrels explosives by aviation regime.
Local activists and medical sources said the Syrian government used a helicopter to drop two barrel bombs loaded with gas on residents.
“Al-Sukkari’s attack resulted in the lives of mostly civilians”, Al Jazeera’s Ahelbarra said.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack, saying that medical sources accused regime warplanes of pounding the Sukkari neighborhood with barrel bombs “laden with poison gas”.
The battle for Aleppo has become the focus both for President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Shia militias from Iraq and Lebanon, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Russian air power, and for the Sunni rebels seeking to overthrow him.
While opposition activists and health workers have accused the Assad regime of another chlorine attack in Aleppo back in August, the Syrian regime’s ally Russian Federation has accused rebels of using the “toxic” chemical agents at government-held areas, also in Aleppo.
Fighting in the deeply contested city of Aleppo has not let up despite worldwide efforts to establish a ceasefire.
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In early August, rebels’ advance into southern Aleppo gave them control over the residential district of Ramousah, a complex of military colleges immediately to its west and the 1070 Apartment Blocks district west of that.
