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BEIRUT (Reuters) – Insurgents have injured more than 100 people in an alleged poison gas attack in Aleppo, Syria, described by a health official as the first such attack in the city.
The shells caused breathing difficulties for dozens of people Saturday night in Aleppo, while the government killed nine people in an Idlib village, a surveillance group said.
The state-run SANA news agency reported Sunday that 107 people were injured in Aleppo after militants hit three districts with projectiles containing sulphurous gas.
It is the heaviest casualty in Aleppo since government forces and their allies took over the city from rebels nearly two years ago.
Rebel officials have denied using chemical weapons and accused the Damascus government of trying to stop them.
Moscow, key ally of Damascus, on Sunday accused insurgents of bombing Aleppo with shells filled with chlorine gas, poisoning 46 people, including eight children.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack was launched from territory controlled by former Al Qaeda militants in the rebel stronghold of Idlib.
Russia also said it would talk to Turkey, which supports some rebel factions and negotiated a ceasefire with Moscow in the Idlib region.
"The explosives (shells) contain toxic gases that have stifled the civilian population," Aleppo police chief Issam al-Shilli told the official media.
"They were taken to al-Razi Hospital and Aleppo University Hospital for treatment because of the irritating substance they inhaled."
Images and images from SANA showed medical workers carrying patients on stretchers and helping them wear an oxygen mask.
"We can not know the types of gas, but we suspected chlorine and treated patients on that basis because of the symptoms," Zaher Batal, president of the Aleppo Medical Association, told Reuters.
Batal said the symptoms included difficulty breathing, inflammation of the eyes, chills and fainting. Hospitals have released many patients.
Batal called it the first such gas attack in Aleppo in the conflict, which has lasted for more than seven years.
Abdel-Salam Abdel-Razak, a leader of the insurgent faction Nour al-Din al-Zinki, said the rebels either did not have chemical weapons or did not have the capacity to produce them.
"The criminal regime, under Russian instructions, is trying to accuse the rebels of using toxic substances in Aleppo. It's purely a lie, "he wrote on Twitter.
Ellen Francis report; Other reports by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Edited by Mark Potter
