At least 93 reportedly killed and hundreds injured near Palmyra, with witnesses saying many child victims suffocated

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is seriously concerned about claims that at least 93 people were killed by a gas attack in central Syria when airstrikes hit a cluster of five villages.

Up to 300 people were also reported to have been injured in the strikes on Monday morning around 130 miles west of the city of Palmyra, which was retaken from Syrian forces by the Islamic State group. Witnesses to the attacks say that none of those who died had blast injuries.

“Most of the dead were families,” said Ahmad al Hamawi, head of a regional council. “They had built primitive shelters and they ran to them, not knowing it was poison gas. While they were in the shelters the gas entered because of the wind direction, and killed dozens, mostly women and children.”

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The high death toll is not consistent with the spate of chlorine gas attacks across Syria in recent years, which have killed scores of people in total but have not caused mass casualties at this scale.

Photographs purportedly taken after the attacks show rows of children lying on the ground. All appear to be dead and foam is apparent near the nose of one young boy.

The images resemble those taken in the aftermath of an attack that killed more than 1,300 people in the suburbs of Damascus in August 2013, which the United Nations said was ‘indisputably’ caused by sarin gas. On that occasion the US, UK and France blamed the Assad regime. The UN said the sarin used had probably come from regime stockpiles.

After the attacks, Syria signed up to the convention for the prevention of chemical weapons and surrendered its stockpile of sarin under international supervision. Weapons experts and western governments have since alleged that officials hid some sarin from inspectors. The OPCW claims it has accounted for 94% of Syria’s sarin stockpiles.

The villages hit on Monday are held by Isis in the far east of Hama province, where up to 40 small communities remain under their sway. They mark the furthest point of Isis influence from the group’s stronghold in eastern Syria. Isis forces did not storm Palmyra from the area, travelling instead across open desert from Raqqa.



However, the five villages, which are little more than farming hamlets, are the closest area of Isis influence to the famed archeological site, the loss of which for a second time has stung the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Al Hamawi said that one village, Jrouh, had been targeted with two rockets, which killed 35 and wounded up to 200. A second attack in nearby Salaliyah killed 46 people. A third attack in Hammadi Omar, about 4 miles (6km) away, sent victims fleeing to a rudimentary Isis-controlled clinic.

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“It doesn’t have a single doctor; the only people who were there were paramedics. They were treated with primitive methods like giving them unpasteurised milk to make them vomit as well as washing them with water and removing their clothes,” said al Hamawi.

“The symptoms they had were foaming from the mouth, sometimes with blood, reddening of the eyes, convulsions and hysteria. People were in terror because there were dead on the streets.”

Ahmad al Dbis, the regional hospitals and trauma director at the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM) said medical volunteers had contacted the organisation looking for treatment advice.

“The missiles used had a small effect radius, so they didn’t have the same destructive power as the missiles usually used.

“The attack also happened during the time when schoolchildren in the area go to their schools, so more than 20 children in Jrouh were suffocating and a large number of them died.”

Medical staff said victims’ symptoms were suffocation, hysteria, vomiting, involuntary urination, foaming at the mouth, sometimes with blood, heavy coughing, red eyes and constricted irises.

Death is said to have occurred quite quickly after victims breathed the gas. Medics on the ground claimed the gas had no colour or smell, and was distinct from the smell of chlorine.

“There were also no oxygen generators or tanks. So those who inhaled a lot of the gas died immediately and those who had breathed in a smaller amount were placed in an open air environment and they slightly improved, but there are still some critical cases,” said al Dbis.