Chemical weapons attack kills at least 58 people in northern Syria

The Syrian military denied using chemicals to attack the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province. A statement from the military general command said it was too 'honourable' to carry out such 'heinous' crimes.

A Syrian child receives treatment after a chemical attack at a field hospital in Saraqib, Idlib province, on April 4, 2017. EPA

BEIRUT // The Syrian regime faced widespread international condemnation on Tuesday for a chemical weapons attack which killed at least 58 people, including 11 children.

The Syrian military denied using chemicals to attack the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, northern Syria. A statement from the military general command said it was too “honourable” to carry out such “heinous” crimes. The Syrian regime’s ally, Russia, also denied any involvement.

But the Syrian Coalition, an opposition group based outside the country, and eyewitnesses within Idlib said it was government planes that carried out the air raid, firing missiles carrying poisonous gas and inflicting “a horrifying massacre” on the civilian population.

Photographs and video emerging from Khan Sheikhoun showed limp bodies of children and adults lying on the ground, some fighting for breath, some foaming at the mouth. One doctor, who published video of his patients on Twitter, said his hospital in Idlib province received three victims, all with narrow, pinpoint pupils that did not respond to light. Contracted pupils, breathing difficulties, and foaming at the mouth are symptoms commonly associated with toxic gas exposure.

The opposition’s Civil Defence search-and-rescue group released photographs showing paramedics washing down victims, and Assi Press, which is run by activists, released footage of paramedics carrying victims from the scene in a pickup truck. The victims were stripped down to their underwear and many appeared unresponsive.

The Idlib Media Center published footage of medical workers appearing to intubate an unresponsive man and hooking up a little girl foaming at the mouth to a ventilator. It was unclear if all those who were killed died from suffocation or were struck by other air raids occurring in the area around the same time.

It was the third claim of a chemical attack in just over a week in Syria. The previous two were reported in Hama province, in an area not far from Khan Sheikhoun.

Opposition activists described Tuesday’s attack as among the worst in the six-year war in Syria and it came on the eve of a major international meeting in Brussels on the future of Syria and the region, to be hosted by the EU’s high representative Federica Mogherini.

France’s foreign minister condemned the “atrocious act” and after calls from France and Britain, the UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on Wednesday morning.

In Washington, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said president Donald Trump was “extremely alarmed” by reports of the attack and said it was “reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilised world.” Mr Spicer also blamed the “weakness and irresolution” of former president Barack Obama for not responding to previous chemical attacks in Syria.

In 2013, hundreds of civilians were killed when toxic sarin gas was dropped on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. President Bashar Al Assad subsequently agreed to hand over Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, comprising 1,300 tons of chemical weapons and the ingredients to make more. But the chemical chlorine, which is widely-available, was not covered in that agreement and dozens of chlorine attacks have been documented since then.

Radiologist Mohammed Tennari said Tuesday’s attack was more severe than previous chemical attacks in Idlib province, which mostly featured chlorine cylinders.

“Honestly, we have not seen this before,” said Dr Tennari, who in 2015 testified before the UN on Syria’s renewed use of chemical attacks after Ghouta. “The previous times the wounds were less severe. There were no deaths, not in those numbers.”

There was a chlorine smell but it was mixed with other things, he said.

His brother Dr AbdulHaj Tennari, a pulmonologist who treated dozens of patients in the Tuesday attack, said it appeared to be more serious than a chlorine attack and medics were further hampered by a shortage of facilities, medical supplies, especially the antidote Pralidoxem.

Most of the fatalities died before they reached hospitals, he said. “If they got to the hospital we could treat them. Two children who took a while before they were lifted out of the rubble died.”

Tarik Jasarevic, spokesman for the World Health Organization in Geneva, said the agency is contacting health providers from Idlib to get more information about Tuesday’s incident. The Syrian American Medical Society, which supports hospitals in opposition-held territory, said it had sent a team of inspectors to Khan Sheikhoun and an investigation was underway.

Mohammed Hassoun, a media activist in nearby Sarmin — also in Idlib province where some of the critical cases were transferred — said the hospital there had been equipped to deal with such chemical attacks because the town was struck in one chemical attack early on in the Syrian uprising.

“There are 18 critical cases here. They were unconscious, they had seizures and when oxygen was administered, they bled from the nose and mouth,” he said. Mr Hassoun, who is documenting the attack for the Syrian American Medical Society, said the doctors believed it was likely more than one gas was used, including possibly sarin.

“Chlorine gas doesn’t cause such convulsions,” he said.

Hussein Kayal, a photographer for the Idlib Media Center, was woken by the sound of a bomb blast around 6:30am. When he arrived at the scene there was no smell, he said.

He found entire families inside their homes, lying on the floor, eyes wide open and unable to move. Their pupils were constricted. He put on a mask and helped wash victims down with water and felt a burning sensation in his fingers as he did so.

Idlib is almost entirely controlled by the Syrian opposition. They have long feared the government was planning to mount a concentrated attack on the province whose population has swelled with about 900,000 displaced Syrians.

* Associated Press and Reuters