22 August 2016•Update: 23 August 2016
By Halit Suleyman
DAMASCUS, Syria
Anadolu Agency has released new images of the Syrian regime’s chemical attack in Syria's Damascus suburbs of al-Ghouta on August 20, 2013, which left more than 1,400 people dead.
The images have been released to mark the attack’s third anniversary.
Anadolu Agency’s new video of the attack, depicting dead bodies of the women and children at the scene, also shows doctors trying to revive people affected by the chemical gas attack.
In the video, some women and children could be seen lying down on the ground, who had difficulty breathing and were fighting for their lives. Civil defense officials wrote numbers on a piece of paper, which were then stitched to the victims’ heads for the sake of keeping records.
The images also showed heavy machinery being used to dig graves.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said it documented 139 chemical attacks in Syria since September 2013 when the UN Security Council issued resolution 2118 for the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.
“Some 136 attacks were carried out by the Syrian regime,” the London-based group said.
It added that Daesh had also carried out three chemical attacks in Syria since 2013. According to the rights group, some 88 people had been killed in chemical attacks in Syria since 2013, including 45 opposition fighters and 36 civilians. The group registered the highest number of chemical attacks in northern Idlib province, Rif Dimashq province and central Hama province.
While Syrian opposition forces and human rights groups accuse the Bashar al-Assad regime of perpetrating the atrocity, the Syrian regime denies the claim.
The Human Rights Watch said it had strong evidence proving the regime’s involvement in the Ghouta chemical attack.
Since March 2011, the Syrian opposition has demanded an end to more than 44 years of Assad family’s rule and the establishment of a democratic state.
The Syrian regime had responded to the peaceful 2011 protests with military force, pushing the country into a vicious downward spiral of violence, bloody battles and a civil war that is still ongoing between the regime and opposition forces. Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to the UN.
The Syrian Center for Policy Research puts the death toll from the six-year conflict at more than 470,000 people.
