At least three civilians have died in a suspected chlorine gas attack on a rebel-held district of Aleppo as battles continue in the divided Syrian city.
Rescue workers said a mother and her two children were killed in
Wednesday night’s bombing, with toddlers and young children among those
pictured being given emergency treatment and oxygen masks in hospital.
Khaled Harah, a first responder, said a regime helicopter dropped
four barrel bombs on Wednesday night on al-Zebdia district, with one
realising chlorine gas.
Mahmoud Rashwani, a pro-rebel activist living in eastern Aleppo,
photographed casualties being rushed into hospital on Wednesday night.
He described a six-year-old girl screaming “I can’t breathe” and said
he was told of at least 70 people injured. The total could not be
independently verified.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Bashar
al-Assad’s forces dropped barrel bombs struck the area and had reports
of two people killed and several suffering breathing difficulties,
although the cause was unclear.
Numerous chlorine gas attacks have
been reported during the Syrian civil war, as well as the use of other
chemical weapons, with opposition forces targeted in the vast majority
of reported cases.
Aleppo has also been the site of numerous air strikes and shelling
blamed on both the regime and rebels causing civilian casualties on both
sides.
The city, divided between government and opposition control, is the
scene of fierce fighting after Islamist rebels fought through regime
lines to break a two-month siege on Friday.
Jaish al-Fath, an alliance of Islamist rebels headed by former
al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, is being targeted by the Syrian
regime and its Russian allies as a designated terrorist organisation.
There has not yet been a sign of promised three-hour ceasefires
scheduled for Thursday by Russia, which said it would allow humanitarian
convoys to enter the city safely following months of desperate
shortages of food and medical supplies.
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