[ad_1]
BEIRUT (Reuters) – More than 100 people were injured Saturday in a poisonous gas attack in Aleppo, Syria, which, said a health official, was the first of the attacks in the city.
A woman breathes through an oxygen mask after what the Syrian media has evoked as an alleged toxic gas attack in Aleppo, Syria, on November 24, 2018. SANA / Handout via REUTERS
The Syrian government and its ally, Russia, blamed the attack on insurgents, accusations denied by rebel officials.
The shells have a strong smell and have caused dozens of respiratory problems in Aleppo, which is under government control, a surveillance group said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that fighter jets struck Sunday a rebel territory in the north-west for the first time since Russia and Turkey agreed to a buffer zone in September.
The state-run SANA news agency said Sunday that 107 people, including children, had been injured after militants hit three districts of Aleppo with projectiles containing gas in the town. origin of a suffocation.
It is the heaviest casualty in Aleppo since government forces and their allies took over the city from rebels nearly two years ago.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday accused insurgents of firing gaseous chlorine shells in Aleppo from the rebel stronghold of Idlib.
The main ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Moscow, said he would speak to Turkey, which supports some rebel factions and has contributed to the conclusion of a ceasefire in the Idlib region.
"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.
Patients had difficulty breathing, eye inflammation, chills and fainting, he said. Hospitals released many people during the night.
Batal said it was the first gas attack against civilians in Aleppo since the beginning of the conflict, more than seven years ago.
OXYGEN STRETCHERS AND MASKS
"The explosives (shells) contain toxic gases that have stifled the civilian population," Aleppo police chief Issam al-Shilli told the official media.
Images and images from SANA showed medical workers carrying patients on stretchers and helping them wear an oxygen mask.
State media said the army fought back against militants near the city, but gave no details. The Syrian Foreign Ministry has urged the US Security Council to condemn and punish this attack.
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 just a lie, "he tweeted.
Abu Omar, a spokesman for Failaq al-Sham, accused Damascus of trying to create a "malicious charade" as a pretext for attacking rebel cities.
The Observatory, based in the UK, said the bombings in Aleppo had injured 94 people, while Saturday's government bombing had killed two women and seven children in an Idlib village.
The September Russian-Turkish agreement had averted a planned military offensive against the Idlib region, particularly in the neighboring regions of Aleppo and Hama provinces.
Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist alliance led by fighters formerly linked to Al Qaeda, is the dominant force among a range of factions that dominate Idlib.
A previous investigation between the UN and the OPCW revealed that the Syrian government had used the sarin nerve agent during an attack in April 2017 and had also used chlorine repeatedly. She also accused Islamic State militants of using mustard gas.
The Assad government repeatedly denied using chemical weapons during the war.
Reports from Ellen Francis to Beirut, from Ahmed Tolba to Cairo, from Kinda Makieh to Damascus, and from Andrew Osborn to Moscow; Edited by Elaine Hardcastle and Raissa Kasolowsky
