One died and dozens of people had to be treated for breathing problems in the Syrian battlefront city of Aleppo after regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs on a rebel-held district on Wednesday, a monitor said.
Advertisement
At least 37 children and 10 women were among those hospitalized, the Aleppo Free Doctors Committee said in a statement.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday strongly condemned Syrian regime attacks which killed a three-year-old child and injured nearly 100 other civilians in Aleppo’s Sukkeri district.
Global inspectors issued a report last month saying government forces and Islamic State militants had each carried out chemical attacks.
The world’s chemical weapons watchdog will investigate the suspected use of chlorine gas in an opposition area of the Syrian city of Aleppo, calling reports of the latest gas attack disturbing.
Video released by the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, shows men hosing down civilians, many of them children.
Meanwhile, SANA reporter in Aleppo said the army units and the supporting forces later continued to advance in the southern countryside of Aleppo province, establishing control over al-Talleh al-Safra’ (hill) to the east of Maarata amid clashes with the terrorist groups in the surroundings of the storehouses in the vicinity of the hill.
At least 80 civilians were taken to hospitals and treated for breathing difficulties, he said.
“Activists have complained that global communities are not doing what they can”, he said.
Medical workers said the opposition-controlled neighborhood was hit Tuesday with chlorine gas, though the report could not be independently verified. The Syrian army could not be immediately reached for comment. Government forces in July encircled the rebel-held part of the city in a siege that cut residents off from basic supplies of food, water, fuel and medicine, spawning a humanitarian crisis.
The U.S. -Russia proposal being discussed would make way for a political transition but does not elaborate on Assad’s future.
Thursday’s push tightens the government’s siege imposed on rebel-held parts of the city and endangers talks between Russian Federation and the United States for a possible Aleppo cease-fire.
The militia’s Twitter account showed pictures of its fighters at the Syrian front with Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of foreign operations for the elite Revolutionary Guards, who has led operations by Tehran’s allies in both Syria and Iraq. An inquiry by the United Nations and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons seen by Reuters last month said the Syrian army had been responsible for two chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015.
They surrounded the western Aleppo after cutting the global road to the city in 2014, a siege broken later by the Syrian army, with the help of Hezbollah.
Syria’s five-year war has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced 11 million, half of Syria’s pre-war population, while drawing in world and regional powers, inspiring jihadist attacks across the world and sparking an worldwide refugee crisis.
The Syrian district of Ramousah was seized by rebels last month.
Advertisement
The Syrian government has denied ever using the chemical weapon, which can be fatal if inhaled in large amounts.
