An air raid during which, according to the National Observatory for Human Rights, gas was allegedly used. At least 58 dead, including 11 children, this is the partial toll that seems destined to worsen given that, according to the first testimonies, hundreds of civilians show vomiting and foam at the mouth, symptoms attributable to the use of chemical weapons. According to the Al-Arabiya Arab TV website which cites the Idlib Health Directorate, there are already at least one hundred victims, over 400 injured, some of them in serious condition.
The chemical attack took place in Khan Sheikhun, in the north-western province of Idlib, in the hands of insurgents and Qaedists of the Fatah al Sham organization (formerly the al Nusra Front). Centers held by forces hostile to Assad have been hit several times. A second raid would also hit a field hospital where victims of the first attack were treated.
Damascus has denied the use of chemical weapons, asserting that the Syrian army "doesn't use them and hasn't used them, first of all because it doesn't have them". However, a joint investigation by the United Nations and chemical weapons observatory had in the past accused the government of toxic gas attacks.
France has called for an "urgent" meeting of the UN security council, while the presidents of Turkey and Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, discussed the raid in a phone call. This was reported by presidential sources in Ankara, according to whom "Erdogan said that such an inhumane attack is unacceptable".
The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, has pointed the finger at the regime of Bashar al-Assad. "Today the news is terrible," said Mogherini speaking to the media in Brussels on the sidelines of the EU-UN conference.
