'Almost 1,500 killed in chemical weapons attacks' in Syria

Nearly 1,500 people have been killed in chemical weapons attacks in Syria during the five-year civil war, according to a report that highlights the uninhibited ferocity of the conflict.

The attacks amount to a strategic policy to displace civilians in opposition-controlled territory, the report by the Syrian-American Medical Society (Sams) concludes.

The vast majority of the documented attacks and the ensuing civilian casualties were perpetrated by the government of Bashar al-Assad, it says.

“In response to chemical attacks in Syria, the international community sends us more antidotes,” Mohammed Tennari, a doctor in the rebel-held province of Idlib, is quoted as saying in the report. “This means that the world knows that chemical weapons will be used against us again and again.

“What we need most is not antidotes – what we need is protection, and to prevent another family from slowly suffocating together after being gassed in their home,” he added.

The report documents 161 chemical attacks in Syria, details of which were gathered from doctors operating on the ground in the areas that bore the brunt of chemical warfare, and which led to the deaths of 1,491 people and 14,581 injuries due to exposure to chemicals. More than a third of the attacks used chlorine gas, and the vast majority of those came after a UN security council resolution condemning its use.

A further 133 reported attacks could not be fully verified by the organisation, which works with about 100 health facilities in Syria.

The report’s release came as peace talks in Geneva brokered by the US and Russia begin almost five years to the day since protests against Assad erupted in the city of Deraa. The conflict has since led to the killing of almost 500,000 people by some accounts, and displaced half of the country’s population.

The most devastating chemical attack was carried out by the Assad government in August 2013 in the besieged Eastern Ghouta, a sprawling agricultural hinterland near Damascus. The attack used sarin gas and may have killed more than 1,000 civilians. 

That incident prompted the brokering of a deal by major powers that dismantled much of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, but attacks using chlorine have since continued in the country. Moreover, Islamic State has also deployed chlorine and mustard agent in attacks on opposition and anti-Isis fighters.

Last year witnessed the greatest use of chemical agents in the war, with 69 documented attacks, despite the dismantling of much of Syria’s stockpile, as the use of nerve agents such as sarin all but ceased, only to be replaced with widespread attacks using so-called “barrel bombs” laced with chlorine.

“Chemical attacks are used strategically to cause civilian displacement in Syria,” the report says. “The fear caused by these silent and unpredictable weapons causes civilians to flee in larger numbers than in the aftermath of conventional attacks.”