Title : Syrian government launches chemical attack on rebel held town
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Syrian government launches chemical attack on rebel held town
- WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
- Regime accused of dropping a barrel bomb containing poisonous chemicals
- The Douma area has been hit by a sustained bombardment during Saturday
- The fighting comes after a 10-day truce broke down on Friday
- Douma is the only area not to have been recaptured by government forces
A Syrian rebel group accused government forces of dropping a barrel bomb containing poisonous chemicals on civilians in eastern Ghouta.
The White Helmets relief organisation said 150 people had been killed in chemical attacks on the area.
Syrian state media denied government forces had launched any chemical attack as soon as the reports began circulating and said rebels in the eastern Ghouta town of Douma were in a state of collapse and spreading false news.
An Syrian child receives medical treatment after the chemical attack
A victim waits to receive medical treatment, one of 70 victims who have suffered from breathing difficulties
Volunteer rescue force The White Helmets tweeted graphic images showing scores of bodies in a basement. It said the death toll is likely to rise.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people had died in Douma as a result of suffocation caused by the smoke from conventional weapons being dropped by the government.
It said a total of 70 people suffered breathing difficulties.
Rami Abdulrahman, the Observatory director, said he could not confirm if chemical weapons had been used.
Medical relief organisation Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six people, and a second attack with 'mixed agents' including nerve agents had hit a nearby building.
Basel Termanini, the U.S.-based vice president of SAMS, told Reuters the total death toll in the chemical attacks was 35.
'We are contacting the U.N. and the U.S. government and the European governments,' he said by telephone.
A man affected by the the poison gas attack with a mask to his face
Three Syrian children in a hospital in the the town of Duma in Eastern Ghouta
Syrian state news agency SANA said the rebel group in Douma, Jaish al-Islam, was making 'chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab army,' citing an official source.
The attacks came as Syrian government forces have resumed deadly bombardments of the last opposition holdout in the Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus.
Another eight civilians were killed on Saturday as more bombing raids slammed into the town, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Rebels in the Douma area responded by attacking civilian areas in Damascus, killing six civilians and wounding dozens more.
Syrian government forces resumed their offensive on rebel-held Douma on Friday afternoon after a 10-day truce collapsed over disagreement regarding evacuation of opposition fighters.
The violence resumed days after hundreds of opposition fighters and their relatives left Douma toward rebel-held areas in northern Syria.
Backed up by Russia's firepower, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ousted his armed opponents from nearly all of Ghouta, their last stronghold on the edge of the capital.
The regime has used a combination of fierce military onslaughts and two negotiated withdrawals to regain 95 percent of the enclave, but rebels are still entrenched in Douma, its largest town.
Smokes rise after government forces carried out airstrikes in Eastern Ghouta's Douma town in Damascus on Saturday
The fighting was not all one way - this photo released by the Syrian official news agency shows Syrians gathered next to a bunt car hit by a shelling by members of the Army of Islam rebel group at Rabwa neighborhood in Damascus on Friday
Scores of civilians have been killed in Eastern Ghouta since a 10-day ceasefire broke down on Friday
Syrians gather next to a bunt car hit by a shelling by members of the Army of Islam rebel group at Rabwa neighborhood in Damascus on Friday
The bombing subsided and military operations appeared to be on hold for around ten days as Moscow pursued talks with Jaish al-Islam, the Islamist faction that holds Douma.
But the negotiations crumbled this week and air strikes resumed on Friday, killing 40 civilians according to the Syrian Observatory.
It could not confirm whether the strikes were carried out by Syrian government warplanes or those of its ally, Russia.
Firas al-Doumi, a rescue worker inside the battered town, told AFP military planes and helicopters were circling overhead.
'The bombing has not stopped. We can't even count all the wounded,' said Mohammed, a young doctor inside Douma.
'There are some wounded who we couldn't operate on in time, and they died,' he said.
Smoke rising after Syrian government airstrikes hit in the town of Douma, in eastern Ghouta region east of Damascus, Syria, Saturday, April. 7, 2018
The government of President Bashar al-Assad has made no secret of its desire to capture al of the Eastern Ghouta area
Douma is the last rebel-controlled town in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, a sprawling suburb of Damascus that was once the opposition's bastion on the edge of the capital
Relatives of Syrians believed to be held by rebels wait on the Syrian government-held side of the Wafideen checkpoint on April 5, 2018, as evacuations of the last rebel-held pocket of the former opposition bastion stall
The shelling has not all been one way. Six civilians were also killed and dozens more wounded as Douma rebels shelled the capital Damascus on Saturday, Syrian state media said.
State television broadcast live footage from a hospital in Damascus, where pools of blood stained the floor and the wounded could be heard wailing in pain.
One woman cried over the lifeless body of a young man on a stretcher. Another said she had been riding in a taxi when the shelling started, and the car crashed head-on into a wall.
President Assad is keen to recapture Ghouta to eliminate the opposition from the outskirts of Damascus and end years of rocket fire on the capital.
The regime's offensive on Ghouta since February 18 has killed more than 1,600 civilians. It sliced the area into three isolated pockets - each held by different rebel factions.
The first two were evacuated under Russian-brokered deals last month that saw more than 46,000 rebels and civilians bussed to opposition-held Idlib province in the northwest.
Buses carrying families of fighters from former rebel bastion Eastern Ghouta arrive at a checkpoint in northern Syria on April 5, 2018
Syrians walk past destroyed buildings in Douma in Eastern Ghouta on March 25, 2018
Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army soldiers walk in the centre of Afrin - Turkey says that it is consolidating its hold of the rebel-held province of Idlib
Tens of thousands also fled into government-controlled territory through safe passages opened by Russia and Syrian troops.
Moscow stepped in to negotiate a deal for Douma, the third and final pocket where Jaish al-Islam had been angling for a reconciliation agreement that would allow them to stay as a police force.
Following a preliminary accord announced by Russia on Sunday, nearly 3,000 fighters and civilians were evacuated from Douma to northern Syria.
But as talks dragged on, Syria and its Russian ally threatened Jaish al-Islam with a renewed military assault if they did not agree to withdraw.
It remains unclear exactly why the talks fell apart this week.
The talks were reported to have faltered when Jaish al-Islam refused to release detainees they were holding in Douma, adding that the military assault would only stop if hostages are released.
Others have pointed to internal rebel divisions over the withdrawal process.
Top Jaish al-Islam political figure Mohammad Alloush on Friday blamed power struggles between the regime's allies.
'The talks were going well... Their only shared interests is the blood of civilians,' he said.
Syrian troops were matching their renewed bombing with a ground operation in the orchards surrounding Douma.
On Saturday, fresh artillery fire hit those fields, said the Observatory.
'The regime is trying to tighten the noose around Douma from the west, east, and south,' said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
Nawar Oliver, an analyst at the Omran Institute, told AFP Jaish al-Islam was facing 'massive' military pressure.
'The negotiations failed and the regime wants its conditions - the air strikes are a taste of what could happen if its conditions are not implemented,' he said.
A reporter for Lebanon's Al-Manar TV embedded with Syrian troops near Douma said government forces advanced toward Douma from the towns of Misraba and Madiara that were recently captured by troops.
Meanwhile in northern Syria, the Turkish military said on its Twitter account that it established the ninth observation post in the rebel-held province of Idlib as part of the de-escalation agreement with Russia and Iran.
Turkey's official Anadolu news agency said the military convoy reached the town of Morek in Idlib province.
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