Amsterdam - The international chemical
weapons watchdog opened an investigation on Monday to determine
whether dozens of people were gassed to death in an attack near
the Syrian capital, possibly by a poisonous cocktail of sarin
and chlorine.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW) chief, Ahmet Uzumcu, said it was responding with "grave
concern" to the suspected chemical weapons attack on Saturday in
the town of Douma, in the Ghouta region.
Witnesses and medical workers reported as many as 60 deaths,
with nearly a thousand injured after at least two bombs hit a
hospital and nearby buildings. Around 500 people received
treatment for breathing problems.
Many of the victims were sheltering underground after
government forces launched an air and ground assault on Douma,
the last rebel-held town in the eastern Ghouta district. Poison
gas can seep down into the hiding places bombs cannot reach.
OPCW inspectors have been attacked on two previous missions
to the sites of chemical weapons attacks in Syria and were not
expected to try to get to Douma.
Instead they will interview witnesses, collect samples of
blood from survivors and gather data on military flights,
methods that have been successful in past investigations.
The OPCW's fact-finding mission, which was already
investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war,
was gathering all available material to establish whether
chemical weapons were used, it said in a statement.
Part of the Hague-based OPCW's work will be to clarify what
chemical agent may have been used, including the possibility
that a cocktail of toxins may have been dropped on the
neighbourhood using aerial bombs, sources told Reuters.
The Syrian government denied its forces had launched any
chemical assault and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
such allegations were false and a provocation.
In Douma, witnesses spoke of smelling chlorine, while
doctors said the symptoms looked more like those of a nerve
agent.
Professor Raphael Pitti, a doctor who viewed videos taken at
the scene, said patients appeared to have had convulsions more
typical of sarin poisoning.
"Everything suggests that during the second attack, chlorine
was used to conceal the use of sarin at the same time," Pitti
said.
A doctor at the scene said some patients had suffered from
hemoptysis, or coughing up blood, a symptom that has never been
seen in previous chemical attacks in Syria.
A joint United Nations-OPCW investigation determined in 2016
and 2017 that Syrian government forces used chlorine and sarin
repeatedly throughout the civil war.
The World Health Organisation said limited access has
prevented it from training health workers in the Douma enclave
on chemical weapons preparedness and response.
It did manage to deliver Atropine ampoules, a medicine used
to save lives after exposure to nerve agents. "However, no
antidote for chlorine exists, if its use is confirmed, and
treatment is symptomatic," said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic.