Russian General Sergei Rudskoy insisted the helicopter was on a humanitarian mission, airdropping food and medical supplies to beleaguered families. The United States accused Damascus of that attack, which it estimates killed 1,429 people, including at least 426 children. The group was aware of around nine suspected chlorine gas incidents across Idlib province since the conflict began, he said.
Advertisement
The Western leaders widely see Russia’s air campaign in the country as an effort to prop up the administration of the current Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad.
Government and opposition forces have both denied using chemical weapons during the five-year-old civil war.
A spokesperson for Syria Civil Defence, a group of volunteer search and rescuers who work in opposition-controlled regions of Syria, told Reuters that 33 people – mostly women and children – were impacted by the gas attack that took place in Saraqeb.
“Medium-sized barrels fell containing toxic gasses”, a spokesman for the group said.
They smelled of chlorine, and the civil defence workers who rescued them said the site of the attack also smelled strongly of chlorine.
Rebels mainly from Jaish al Fatah alliance of Islamist groups pushed from the south of the city while fighters from Free Syrian Army (FSA) brigades pounded government-held areas of Syria’s most populous city and commercial hub before the war broke out in 2011.
Raed Al Halabi, a fighter in the local Halab al-Shahba Brigades, said on Tuesday a coalition of armed groups will launch shells and vehicle bomb attacks against Aleppo’s government-held neighbourhoods with the hope of advancing and opening the government-besieged supply route into the city.
“The daily reality confirms that all the global agreements and previous Security Council decisions, be they about chemical weapons or otherwise, are meaningless for the Assad regime”.
Russia’s defence ministry said a Russian helicopter was shot down near Saraqeb during the day on Monday. The crash killed all five Russian soldiers on board, constituting the largest loss of Russian life since Russia’s intervention in Syria in September 2014.
Violence has increased around Aleppo, including in neighboring provinces, since the government sealed off the final lifeline to rebel-controlled neighborhoods of the city.
An estimated 250,000 residents have been under a regime siege since 17 July.
A Syrian rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said on Tuesday a helicopter dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town close to where a Russian military helicopter had been shot down hours earlier.
Advertisement
Some neighborhoods in the besieged eastern Aleppo have been under fire for more than 80 consecutive days, with regular bombardment by regime forces backed by Russian air power.
