In yet another act of flagrant defiance of international laws and conventions, the Assad regime carried out a new chemical attack on civilians. Assad’s air force dropped barrel bombs loaded with chlorine gas on the towns of Sarmin and Qmenas in rural Idlib yesterday evening, killing six civilians including three children, and injuring about 70 others who suffered from suffocation, including members of the rescue teams.
A medic in a field hospital in Sarmin said that they received many cases of suffocation, among 13 in serious condition, which confirms exposure to poisonous gas, a type of chlorine.
Vice-President Hisham Marwa strongly condemns this heinous crime, calling on the UN Security Council to send a fact-finding mission as soon as possible to the scene of the attack and conduct an investigation into the Assad regime’s of the system for chlorine gas. Marwa also calls for holding the perpetrators of this crime to account in accordance with the provisions of the UN Security Council Resolution 2118.
“Once again the Assad regime has used the chlorine gas against civilians in flagrant violations of the UN Security Council Resolution No. 2209 which bans use of chlorine gas in Syria,” Marwa added.
“The UN Security Council must take all necessary measures that ensures the enforcement of the resolution No. 2209, which rules that chlorine gas is toxic and a chemical weapon, and that using it militarily represents a gross violation of international law and a flagrant violation of Resolution 2118,” Marwa stresses.
“Items 6 and 7 in UN resolution 2209 states that individuals responsible for the use of chemical weapons, including chlorine gas, must be held accountable, and in the case of non-compliance with the provisions of resolution 2118 the Security Council should impose measures under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)
