THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday it was reviewing security ahead of a possible probe into an alleged chemical attack in Syria’s regime-held city of Aleppo over the weekend.
Damascus formally requested the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague investigate the alleged attack on Saturday which Syrian officials and rights groups said left scores of people struggling to breathe.
Both the Syrian regime and its ally Russia have blamed “terrorist groups” — a term which Damascus uses to mean both rebels and militants.
The alleged attack also prompted Russia to launch retaliatory air strikes into a planned buffer zone near the last major opposition stronghold of Idlib.
“The OPCW Secretariat has been monitoring the situation,” said director-general Fernando Arias.
It has contacted the UN’s security department “in order to assess the security situation on the ground for a possible deployment of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) to Syria,” the OPCW director-general said.
The body’s Secretariat implements the OPCW’s verification measures while the FFM, set up in 2014, investigates all allegations of chemical weapons use in war-torn Syria.
“The OPCW’s experts will continue to work independently to verify all allegations of the use of chemicals as weapons in Syria,” Arias told delegates at a nine-day conference to review the world body’s strategy for the next five years.
Syria again Monday blamed “armed terrorist groups” for launching a toxic gas attack which it said left around 100 Syrians hospitalized with breathing difficulties.
“It is believed that the agent used was chlorine,” said Bassam Al-Sabbagh, Syria’s permanent representative to the OPCW.
“We have discussed the potential of launching an investigation into this attack to find out what exactly happened in the city of Aleppo,” he told the delegates.
Russia said the shelling came from an area of the buffer zone controlled by the jihadist-dominated Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) alliance.
A rebel coalition has denied any involvement, but neither the HTS, nor the Al-Qaeda-linked Hurras Al-Deen group present in the area have commented on Saturday’s alleged attack.
It was the latest accusation of a chemical attack in Syria’s grinding seven-year civil war, which has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions.
Chemical arms watchdog to ‘review security’ for Syria gas probe
Chemical arms watchdog to ‘review security’ for Syria gas probe
- Both the Syrian regime and its ally Russia have blamed “terrorist groups”
- Damascus formally requested the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague investigate the alleged attack on Saturday
UN rights chief shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
