This attack comes nearly exactly a year after the UN Security Council passed a resolution to establish a mechanism to investigate chemical attacks in Syria and identify their perpetrators.
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“The world has stood by and remarked how “complicated” Syria is, while doing little to protect us. Recent offers of evacuation from the regime and Russian Federation have sounded like thinly veiled threats to residents – flee now or face what fate?”
Syrians in the region have been reusing disposable medical supplies, like syringes, and people have expressed concerns that ambulances and hospital generators will be unable to run as fuel levels continue to degrade.
Men, women and children are shown being fitted with oxygen masks by medical staff.
The gas is thought to have been chlorine dropped in a barrel bomb, said the Syrian Civil Defence – volunteer emergency response workers who operate in opposition-held areas.
“Any pause obviously should always be seen and looked at with great interest, because a pause means no fighting, but three hours is not enough”, said UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.
“There is a lot of evidence that it actually did take place”, he said. It had reports of two killed and several people suffering breathing difficulties. “The smell was very strong – beyond any description”.
The Aleppo Media Centre, an online opposition news portal for the city, posted a video that it said was of victims of the gas attack: a child and adults wearing breathing apparatus.
“When we examined these casualties, we realised it was due to chlorine”, he added. The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical weapons and requires States Parties to destroy chemical weapon stockpiles.
The United States Holocaust Museum is calling for the global community to protect civilians in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo, which has become a battleground for rebels and the Assad regime.
Rebel groups broke the regime siege of east Aleppo on August 6, and in turn placed the regime-held west Aleppo under siege.
Moscow’s call for the daily three-hour halt in fighting was greeted with scepticism by rebel forces, while the United Nations warned that the pause was not long enough to ease the humanitarian crisis faced by hundreds of thousands of civilians in the city.
The Defense Ministry says the Tu-22M3 bombers flew from their base in Russia Thursday to strike targets southeast, north and northwest of Raqqa.
“We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers”, said Aleppo’s last remaining doctors in an open letter to US President Barack Obama.
“Right now, there is an an attack on a medical facility every 17 hours”, the letter said.
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The attack on a residential neighbourhood in a part of Aleppo controlled by armed groups is the third reported use of chemical weapons in northern Syria in just two weeks and has reportedly killed at least four people.
