Gassed: More allegations of Assad atrocities in Syria (photos, videos) Amnesty International issue press release

Photos and videos have appeared once again on social media from activists claiming to show adults and children suffering from the affects of chlorine gas in Syria. Six deaths within one family have been reported by eyewitnesses to Amnesty International and around 100 other victims are suffering. The alleged gas attacks are said to have taken place in Sermine, northwestern Idlib province on March 16th 2016 perpetrated by the Bashar al-Assad regime. UN security council has recently condemned the use of chemical weapons including chlorine in Syria which is banned for use in war under the Geneva protocol of 1925. Other incidents have been reported this year though the Syrian regimes has dismissed this as propaganda. See video links of the latest incidents,

Victims of chemical attacks on Sermine, Syria March 16th 2016

Video 1

Video 2

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The following images were posted on social media claiming to show victims

Amnesty International issued a press statement as follows,

Syria: ‘horrific’ chlorine gas attack has killed an entire family

17 March 2015 5:36pm

Syrian army helicopters were seen dropping barrels containing toxic substances last night © TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images

Attack is ‘more evidence that the Syrian government forces are committing war crimes with impunity’ – Philip Luther

Eyewitnesses to an alleged chlorine gas attack last night in Idlib in northern Syria have told Amnesty International about the horrific death of an entire family, including three children under the age of three.

Scores of other civilians were exposed to toxic chlorine gas in two apparent chemical weapons attacks allegedly carried out by government forces in and around the town of Sermine last night.

Around 100 people in all were exposed to toxic levels of chlorine after Syrian armed forces helicopters dropped four barrels containing the gas in two attacks on Sermine and nearby Qmainass between 9:15pm and 11:00pm, according to the eyewitnesses. The injured included a small number of fighters from the Free Syrian Army armed group, but the vast majority were civilians.

A doctor and a civil defence worker told Amnesty that those affected by the attack had no injuries associated with explosive weapons, but showed symptoms characteristic of a chemical weapons attack, including reddened eyes, shortness of breath, continuous coughing, respiratory distress, vomiting, and drooling from the mouth. A civil defence member who responded to a home near the attack site in Sermine told Amnesty:

“The smell was horrible. We evacuated people. We were told that a family lives in the basement. Three of us went down the stairs. I took one breath and then when I took the second my throat burned, my eyes started burning. We didn’t have masks. We don’t have special clothes. I couldn’t proceed. I was holding my breath but couldn’t hold it further. I saw a woman on the stairs. She was blue and was not breathing. We evacuated her and a minute later the next team went in and evacuated the other family. They were wearing masks – that is why they were able to go all the way down. They evacuated the father, mother and three babies. They all died.”

The names of the family members who were killed are Warf Mohammad Taleb, his mother Ayoush Hassan Qaq, his wife Ala al-Jati, and their three children: Sara Taleb, A’isha Taleb, and Mohamad Taleb.

A local activist posted video footage from a hospital in the aftermath of the attacks. It shows a dying infant lying naked on a table and the limp, naked bodies of the other two Taleb children being brought in and placed on top of their mother’s corpse on a hospital bed.

A Syrian military spokesperson has denied responsibility for the attacks.

Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Director Philip Luther said:

“These horrific attacks that resulted in civilians, including small children, suffering excruciating deaths, are yet more evidence that the Syrian government forces are committing war crimes with impunity.

“The situation in Syria must be referred to the International Criminal Court as a matter of urgency.”

2013 chemical attacks

In September 2013, after hundreds of people died in alleged Sarin gas attacks on Ghouta, outside Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention and pledged to destroy the country’s stockpile of prohibited chemical agents. However, a year later, in September 2014, an Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons fact-finding mission found “compelling confirmation” that a toxic chemical was used “systematically and repeatedly” as a weapon in villages in northern Syria earlier in the year.

New Raqqa report

Amnesty released a new report today providing damning evidence that Syrian government forces unlawfully killed up to 115 civilians in a series of aerial attacks on the city of Raqqa in November, with some of the attacks possibly amounting to war crimes. The 25-page report – Al-Raqqa under attack: Syrian air force strikes against civilians – documents a series of airstrikes between 11 and 29 November that killed scores of civilians, including 14 children. The attacks included assaults on a busy market crammed full of civilians, a mosque, shops, a transport hub, a storage facility and a residential building.

View latest press releases

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August 2013 attack

Back on August 21st, 2013, I received an early report of alleged attack on East Ghouta which read,

East Ghouta, Damascas province, 21-08-2013: regime’s chemical weapons attacks on Ein Tarma and Zamalka in the East Ghouta region of Damascus province tonight. According to an eyewitness in East Ghouta, regime forces are now launching missiles at the areas of the attacks in order to prevent rescuers and medical personnel from reaching them.

At that time the news had not reached mainstream media and it was difficult to determine the extent of the horrors, the following was my initial report with photos, videos and a list of victims see,

“East Ghouta Damascus Syrian opposition claiming attacks with hundreds killed, urgent investigation required.”

https://activist1.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/east-ghouta-damascus-syrian-opposition-claiming-chemical-attacks-with-hundreds-killed-urgent-investigation-required/

Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad . She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.

2 Responses to Gassed: More allegations of Assad atrocities in Syria (photos, videos) Amnesty International issue press release

Call A Spade says:

September 16, 2015 at 8:09 am

You are a clairvoyant I will wait for the truth not you scrabbled recollections of the future.

- Carol Anne Grayson says:
  
  September 16, 2015 at 9:21 am
  
  Thanks but your comment does not make sense as recollection is retrospective not in the future…