Poison gas attack by Khan Sheikhun

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Map with the front line drawn in and the localized location of the poison gas attack near Chan Shaichun in Syria.

The poison gas attack on April 4, 2017 died in the Syrian city of Chan Schaichun during the civil war in Syria by poison gas at least 86 people and more were injured.

A civil war has been going on in Syria for years ; the province of Idlib was then controlled by a Syrian rebel alliance and was considered the most important stronghold of the rebels.

The governments of numerous countries, including the USA, France, Great Britain and Germany, blamed the Syrian government for the poison gas attack.

course

On the morning of April 4, hundreds of photos and videos (showing injured people with shortness of breath and suffocation, as well as deaths) and eyewitness reports appeared on social media. Regional news agencies and the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported an air strike by a fighter plane at around 6:30 a.m. local time.

A second air raid took place a few hours later; a missile hit the city's hospital, where many victims of the poison gas were being treated. The local headquarters of the Syrian White Helmets was also hit.

MSF reported after the attack that patients were showing symptoms that are typical of victims of sarin or similar poisonous gases.

On April 5, based on autopsies of three bodies by Turkish doctors, the World Health Organization assumed that it was a nerve agent , probably sarin or another nerve gas. The Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ did not comment on the question of which nerve agent it could have been.

One day after the attack, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that a Syrian Air Force jet had hit a chemical weapons factory and a large ammunition dump east of Khan Shayhun; the latter had exploded.

Sarin is normally stored in two preliminary stages ; Only through the mixture of the two substances does it become a poison gas and these preliminary stages would ineffectively go up in flames in an air attack. According to the Russian spokesman, the air strike took place between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. local time. These claims do not match the hundreds of photos and videos posted a few hours earlier.

The UN Security Council also met on April 5, 2017 and discussed the poison gas attack. Russia vetoed a resolution that did not even name the Syrian government. However, the Syrian Armed Forces would have been asked to disclose their operations that day.

On April 7, 2017, US President Donald Trump attacked the asch-Schaʿirat military airfield with cruise missiles in response to the poison gas attack .

The Russian government spoke of a strain on relations between Russia and the United States and moved the frigate Admiral Grigorovich to the Mediterranean. Russia wants to investigate the attack in Syria.

The Syrian government and Russia's President Putin denied responsibility for the use of poison gas by the Syrian armed forces. Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim claimed that the Syrian armed forces had never used chemical weapons against their own people and would not do so in the future. Syria's President Assad described the chemical weapons attack as "one hundred percent constructed".

On April 11, the Trump administration issued a detailed statement.

The international organization OPCW ( Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons ) announced on April 19, 2017 that, according to its investigations, the victims had been injured or killed by the warfare agent sarin or a substance similar to sarin. At the same time, she announced that she would conduct further research on site as soon as the security situation permits.

On April 21, 2017, the chief investigators of the United Nations' independent Syria Commission announced that they were convinced that the poison gas used was sarin. In the last week of April, on the basis of samples from the attack site and victims, France declared that the production method of the sarin found bore “the signature of the regime”.

A special commission of the United Nations (UN), the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic", published its report in September 2017. The commission was not there itself. However, photos showed fragments of a chemical bomb, as was common in Soviet times. It was dropped from a Su-22 fighter aircraft used by the Syrian Air Force . Based on these findings, which were also based on satellite images and eyewitness reports, the investigative commission blamed the Syrian government for the attack.

More reactions

On April 19, the US newspaper The Nation quoted the above-mentioned [which?] Four-page paper, for which the Trump administration and not the secret services signed. The paper apparently provided legitimation for the attack with the cruise missiles on April 7th. Especially after the attack in the USA, there was still skepticism about the exact course of the incident in the time up to the publication of the OPCW report, which was expected within two weeks.

The Canadian Department of State announced on June 29, 2017 that Canada is providing the OPCW with an out-of-budget grant of CAN $ 2.5 million (approximately US $ 1.9 million). According to Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland , the money will help the OPCW increase its investigative capacity in Syria.

Others

Already in 2013 the held by insurgents was ghouta attacked with sarin .

Allegedly, the Syrian government used the poison gas chlorine five times between January 1 and April 4, 2017 .

Asianews.it published an article by journalist Uri Avneri on July 8, 2017 . Averi wrote that to date there was no evidence of the authorship of the Assad regime and that the motives spoke against it.

Investigators not only checked samples collected by insurgents in Chan Sheikhun, but also samples that had been handed over by the Syrian government. The Syrian regime had the samples examined in a laboratory before they were handed over to the OPCW (with sarin residues being found) and forwarded these results to the OPCW. This prevents the OPCW investigators from manipulating the samples. Assad supporters have spread allegations of this kind on the Internet.

See also

Web links

Commons : April 2017 poison gas incident in Syria  - Pictures, videos and audio files collection

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b Autopsy of corpses confirms use of poison gas , Spiegel Online, April 6
  2. ^ Syria regime responsible for gas attack on rebel-held town, UN finds , The Guardian, October 25, 2017
  3. a b Rocket attack on clinic with alleged poison gas victims. In: Der Spiegel . April 4, 2017, accessed November 6, 2017 (with maps).
  4. a b Background: The poison gas attack in Chan Sheikhun. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk , April 17, 2017, archived from the original on November 6, 2017 ; accessed on November 6, 2017 .
  5. ^ Poison for the Syrian People , Spiegel Online, April 4, 2017
  6. ^ New York Times: Worst Chemical Attack in Years in Syria; US Blames Assad . New York Times, April 4, 2017
  7. Syria: Khan Sheikhoun victims have symptoms consistent with exposure to chemical substances . In: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International . ( msf.org [accessed April 5, 2017]).
  8. WHO alarmed by use of highly toxic chemicals as weapons in Syria , World Health Organization, April 5, 2017
  9. spiegel.de: Russia presents its own declaration
  10. ↑ Use of poison gas in Syria - “You're still breathing, that's all” NZZ, April 5, 2017
  11. spiegel.de April 5, 2017 / Christoph Sydow: One lie and many inconsistencies
  12. Alleged poison gas attack: Syria resolution fails in the UN Security Council , Spiegel Online , April 5, 2017.
  13. ^ Trump Orders Missile Attack in Retaliation for Syrian Chemical Strikes . In: US Department of Defense . ( defense.gov [accessed April 7, 2017]).
  14. Russia relocates warship to the Syrian coast. Die Welt, April 7, 2017.
  15. ^ Poison gas attack in Syria: Russia wants UN investigation. In: tagesschau.de. April 11, 2017. Retrieved July 12, 2017 .
  16. tagesschau.de: Syrian government denies responsibility for poison gas attack. Retrieved April 9, 2017 .
  17. Chemical weapons attack "one hundred percent constructed". Spiegel Online , April 13, 2017.
  18. Anne Barnard, Michael R. Gordon / nytimes.com, April 11, 2017: Declassified US Report on Chemical Weapons Attack (with digitized statement)
  19. OPCW Director-General Shares Incontrovertible Laboratory Results Concluding Exposure to Sarin. Press release of the OPCW from April 19, 2017. (English)
  20. UN Commission on Syria: Convinced of the use of poison gas. , euronews, April 22, 2017
  21. https://de.euronews.com/2017/04/26/franzosischer-aussenminister-assad-regime-steckt-zweifelsfrei-hinter
  22. ^ Wiener Zeitung of September 7, 2017, page 7.
  23. Syria: UN blames Bashar al-Assad for poison gas attack. In: DW - Deutsche Welle . September 6, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017 .
  24. ^ The Chemical-Weapons Attack In Syria: Is There a Place for Skepticism? The Nation, April 19, 2017.
  25. Le Canada annonce un soutien supplémentaire pour l'interdiction des armes chimiques en Syrie , Affaires mondiales Canada, June 29, 2017
  26. Assad's poison gas? Deutsche Welle, April 6, 2017.
  27. Inaugural visit during the crisis: Cool reception in Moscow for Rex Tillerson. In: Handelsblatt. April 11, 2017. Retrieved April 12, 2017 .
  28. Christian Weisflog: Number of dead after poison gas attack rises to 72 , NZZ, April 5, 2017; the report at ohchr.org (docx)
  29. Uri Avnery: The 'bizarre case' of Bashar al-Assad and nerve gas In: Asianews.it, July 8, 2017
  30. spiegel.de July 5, 2017: Assad regime itself provides evidence of sarin attack

Coordinates: 35 ° 26 ′ 20 ″  N , 36 ° 39 ′ 4 ″  E