The Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack, symbol of a suffocated Syria
Rights — di Andrea Barolini
At least 72 dead, perhaps 100. Twenty of them are children. This is the toll of a devastating chemical attack that struck the province of Idlib, in Syria.
The Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack, symbol of a suffocated Syria
At least 72 dead, perhaps 100. Twenty of them are children. This is the toll of a devastating chemical attack that struck the province of Idlib, in Syria.
At least 72 people, among whom are at least twenty children, died following an aerial bombardment that in the night between Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 April 2017 struck the city of Khan Sheikhoun, in the north-western province of Syria. Some sources report one hundred victims. They were killed by chemical agents not yet identified with certainty: some have spoken of chlorine bombs, others of sarin gas.
Putin defends Syria and speaks of a mistake
The urban centre is partly controlled by rebel groups, partly by jihadist organisations. For this reason, the finger was pointed immediately at the regular Syrian air force, accused not only of having carried out the attack with chemical weapons, but also of having bombed, shortly afterwards, a hospital in which the wounded had just been admitted. France and the United Kingdom immediately called for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which took place on the morning of 5 April.
Syrie: des signes d'exposition à des «agents neurotoxiques» chez les victimes du bombardement de mardi, d’après… rfi.my/1231.t
The Syrian opposition, the United States and Turkey, together with Paris and London, directly accused Damascus. Damascus, for its part, categorically denied any responsibility. Russia, meanwhile, completely "exonerated" its ally Assad, speaking of a simple mistake: some bombs had allegedly landed by accident on a chemical weapons depot used by "terrorists", whose explosion caused the dispersal of the gases.
It's not clear what was used in the chemical attack in Idlib, Syria, but signs point to a nerve agent like sarin cnn.it/2p0PYQa
In the hours immediately following the attack, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan requested and obtained a telephone conversation with Putin, during which he spoke of an "inhuman attack" that places the entire peace process in serious jeopardy — a process that the parties have been struggling to advance since December 2016. For her part, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, pointed the finger without hesitation at the Syrian government: "The news that has reached us is horrific. It is clear that the primary responsibility lies with the regime, because a government is called upon to protect its own people, not to attack them," she declared on the sidelines of an international conference held in Brussels.
MSF confirms: symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic gases
Meanwhile, a Médecins Sans Frontières team that had supported the emergency department of the Bab Al Hawa hospital in the province of Idlib confirmed that "the patients' symptoms are consistent with exposure to neurotoxic agents such as sarin gas or similar compounds: constricted pupils, muscle spasms, involuntary defecation." Members of the NGO also visited "other facilities that were treating patients affected by the attack, finding in the victims the smell of bleach, suggesting their exposure to chlorine."
The White House said the chemical attack in Syria "cannot be ignored by the civilized world" nyti.ms/2nUr6u2
The Syrian government has, moreover, already been accused of having used chemical weapons during the war. In October 2016, the UN Security Council received a report concluding that Assad's army had used chlorine bombs on at least one occasion. This refers to an attack carried out on 15 March 2016, also in the province of Idlib: on that occasion the city of Qmenas was struck.
Syrie : au moins 58 morts dans un attaque «chimique», selon l'opposition syrienne dlvr.it/NpDMqQ
What remains amid the controversy and the blame being passed back and forth are the images of men and children with wide-staring eyes, foam running from their mouths, their bodies livid. Photographs that flooded social networks and newspapers around the world, yet that are unlikely to have touched the consciences of those who are responsible — or co-responsible — for a massacre so brutal. Whether it was the air force of Assad's government, as denounced by the Syrian rebels and much of the international community, or a mistake, as Putin claims, matters little to the parents, the wives, the mothers and the fathers of the victims. All that is left to us is the image of a Syria suffocated, in every sense of the word.