MOSCOW: Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that a poisonous gas contamination in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun was the result of gas leaking from a rebel chemical weapons depot after it was hit by Syrian government air strikes.
The death toll from the suspected chemical weapons attack has risen to 72, 20 of them children, a monitoring group said on Wednesday.
“There were also 17 women among the dead and the death toll could rise further because there are people missing,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The United States has blamed the administration of Syrian President Bashar Assad for the attack, in which scores of people are reported to have been killed.
“Yesterday, from 11:30 am to 12:30 p.m. local time, Syrian aviation made a strike on a large terrorist ammunition depot and a concentration of military hardware in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun town,” Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov said in a statement posted on YouTube.
“On the territory of the depot there were workshops which produced chemical warfare munitions.”
He said the chemical munitions had been used by rebels in Aleppo last year. “The poisoning symptoms of the victims in Khan Sheikhoun shown on videos in social networks are the same as they were in autumn of the previous year in Aleppo,” Konoshenkov said.
The UN Security Council was to meet later on Wednesday to debate a Western-drafted resolution condemning the air strike.
Rebel groups led by former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh Al-Sham Front vowed revenge for Tuesday’s strike in the town of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province in the northwest.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova)
The UN Security Council was to meet later on Wednesday to debate a Western-drafted resolution condemning the air strike.
But Moscow, which holds a veto, defended its Damascus ally saying that while Syrian aircraft had carried out a strike, the chemicals were part of a “terrorist” stockpile of “toxic substances” that had been hit on the ground.
Rebel groups led by former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh Al-Sham Front vowed revenge for Tuesday’s strike in the town of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province in the northwest.
