Suspected chlorine gas attack on Eastern Aleppo causes deaths, injuries: hospital, rescuers

At least four people died and many suffered breathing difficulties when a gas, believed to be chlorine, was dropped alongside barrel bombs on a neighborhood of the Syrian city of Aleppo on Wednesday, a hospital and a civil defense group told Reuters.

Hamza Khatib, the manager of Al Quds hospital in Aleppo, told a Reuters photographer the hospital had recorded four deaths from gas poisoning and 55 injuries. Seven people were still receiving hospital treatment. Khatib said he was preserving pieces of patients clothing and fragments from the barrel bombs as evidence for analysis.

Syria Civil Defence, a Syrian rescue service operating in rebel-held territory, told Reuters it had recorded three deaths and 22 injuries after a barrel containing a gas suspected of being chlorine fell on the Zubdiya neighborhood of rebel-held Aleppo. The group, which describes itself as a neutral band of search and rescue volunteers, said it could not independently verify the nature of the gas.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said helicopters dropped explosive barrels on the neighborhoods of Seif al Dawla and Zubdiya, leading to the death of a woman and her child from suffocation.

There have been unconfirmed reports among activists and residents of chlorine gas falling on rebel-held east Aleppo since the insurgent offensive. The Aleppo Media Centre, an online opposition news portal for the city, posted a video that it said was of victims of the gas attack: a child and adults wearing breathing apparatus. Two men interviewed said barrel bombs were dropped and there was a strong smell of gas. People then began to suffer breathing and eye problems.

A child is being treated in al-Quds hospital in Eastern Aleppo [10/8/2016, photo by @MahmoudRashwani]

Source: Reuters