By Khalil Ashawi and Tom Perry
IDLIB, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Abdel Hamid al-Youssef said 25 members of his family, including his wife and infant twins, were killed when poison gas was dropped on their town in Syria in 2017, in an attack a U.N.-backed inquiry concluded was launched by the Syrian state.
“In seconds, everything was erased. Life was completely erased,” Youssef, 33, said of the sarin attack that struck the town of Khan Sheikhoun, one of scores of times chemical weapons have reportedly been used in the country’s 11-year-old war.
The bombardment, in Syria’s rebel-held northwest, killed at least 90 people, 30 of them children, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights group, said.
By the time of the strike, Syrian-allies Russia and China had already vetoed efforts at the United Nations to open an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.
As the Khan Sheikhoun attack marks it fifth anniversary, survivors and human rights campaigners say the failure to hold anyone accountable for chemical attacks in Syria could encourage further use of such banned weapons.
The United States and other countries have warned Russia could deploy chemical or biological munitions in its invasion of Ukraine, without providing concrete evidence. The Kremlin has dismissed the statements as “diversion tactics”.
“There is no deterrent for Russia,” said Youssef, who wants Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to be held to account. “Until this day, the criminal is free.”
Assad’s government has denied using chemical weapons in the war, which started as an uprising against his rule and has killed at least 350,000 people. Syria signed international conventions outlawing the use of such weapons in 2013.
The details of the Khan Sheikhoun attack are seared into Youssef’s memory, starting with the noise of warplanes that launched several air strikes on the town beginning at 6:30 a.m.
Trying to get his family to safety, Youssef headed towards his parents’ home. His wife went ahead as he stopped to aid a neighbour who was was screaming for help.
Youssef said he helped load casualties into a pickup truck. Some were foaming at the mouth.
Youssef lost consciousness as he tried to help his neice. He awoke in hospital hours later, only realizing the scale of the calamity when he returned home that afternoon.
“There were rooms of martyrs. I didn’t know which one to take: my brother, my nephew, my children, my wife,” said Youssef. “They put them in shrouds. We took them to the cemetery and buried them there.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration responded by firing 59 cruise missiles at the air strip from which it said the attack was launched.
Six months later, a report by an investigative mechanism established by the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – which enforces treaties banning the use of such arms – said the victims’ symptoms were consistent with large-scale poisoning by the nerve agent sarin.
It said it was “confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017”. The town fell to government forces in 2019.
Five years later, Youssef says he still feels the effects and sometimes faints when he smells strong odours such as household chlorine. The biggest impact, however, has been psychological, he said, adding that he lives in fear.
For survivors of sarin attacks, the effects can include persistent vision problems, gastro intestinal issues, and post-traumatic stress disorder, said Professor Alastair Hay, a chemical weapons expert.
“The main impact is usually catastrophic death, and very quickly,” he said, adding that more data is needed on the long-term consequences of exposure to chemical weapons.
At the time of the attack, Russia – which threw its military support behind Assad in 2015 – said the chemicals belonged to Syrian rebels, not the government. President…
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