Syrians Recall ‘Apocalypse’ Chemical Attack, 10 Years On

 20 August 2023, Syria, Idlib: A member of the Syria Civil Defense, known as White Helmets participates in a commemoration event for the 10th anniversary of the Ghouta chemical attack. (dpa)
20 August 2023, Syria, Idlib: A member of the Syria Civil Defense, known as White Helmets participates in a commemoration event for the 10th anniversary of the Ghouta chemical attack. (dpa)
TT
20

Syrians Recall ‘Apocalypse’ Chemical Attack, 10 Years On

 20 August 2023, Syria, Idlib: A member of the Syria Civil Defense, known as White Helmets participates in a commemoration event for the 10th anniversary of the Ghouta chemical attack. (dpa)
20 August 2023, Syria, Idlib: A member of the Syria Civil Defense, known as White Helmets participates in a commemoration event for the 10th anniversary of the Ghouta chemical attack. (dpa)

Syrians in the country's opposition-held north on Monday marked the 10-year anniversary of chemical attacks that killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus, one of the conflict's many horrors that went unpunished.

"I was in such shock. I smelt death," said Mohammed Sleiman, a paramedic from Zamalka in Eastern Ghouta who lost five members of his family that day.

On August 21, 2013, regime forces attacked Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyet al-Sham, opposition-held areas outside the capital.

The opposition accused the regime of using toxic gas in the attacks, which killed around 1,400 people, including more than 400 children.

The government denied the allegations.

Speaking from the northern city of Afrin, held by pro-Turkish opposition factions, Sleiman recalled rushing to the scene after hearing news of the attack.

He wrapped his face with a piece of cloth to protect himself from the gas.

"I found a large number of people hurt or dead. It was like the apocalypse. The scene was indescribable," the 40-year-old told AFP ahead of the anniversary.

When he went back to his family home, he found it empty. With one of his brothers, he went to look for them at a nearby medical facility.

"I found my father and all the neighbors, all of them just with numbers, no names. I remember my father was number 95. I identified the bodies of the people I knew," he said.

Trauma

Syria's war broke out in 2011 after President Bashar al-Assad's repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global extremists.

The war has killed more than half a million people and forced around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes.

Sleiman later learned that his other brother, his sister-in-law and their two children had also been killed in the attack.

"We dug a communal grave for hundreds of people and buried them close together," he said.

"When I tell the story, I can see it all in front of me as if it was now," he said, adding that he was receiving psychological counselling because of the trauma.

Activists in 2013 posted dozens of amateur videos on YouTube said to show the effects of the attack, including footage of dozens of corpses, many of them children, outstretched on the ground.

Other images showed unconscious children, people foaming at the mouth and doctors apparently giving them oxygen to help them breathe.

The scenes provoked revulsion and condemnation around the globe.

A United Nations report later said there was clear evidence sarin gas was used.

World's 'failure'

Despite insisting the use of chemical weapons was a red line, then US president Barack Obama held back on retaliatory strikes, instead reaching a deal with Russia on the dismantlement of Syria's chemical arsenal under UN supervision.

Eastern Ghouta returned to regime control in 2018.

Survivors and activist gathered at several sites in Syria's opposition-held north and northwest Syria on Sunday to mark the anniversary.

At a commemoration in Afrin, survivors shared their stories while young children put on a small performance, re-enacting the horror.

Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) global watchdog and give up all chemical weapons.

The OPCW has since blamed Damascus for a series of chemical attacks during the war.

Syria's OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, in an unprecedented rebuke following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.

"We are not organizing this event in order to remember the massacre, as it is always on our minds," said Mohammed Dahleh, a survivor from Zamalka who helped organize the Afrin commemoration.

"We are reminding the world... of its failure to support justice and rights," he said.

"We will continue to insist on the need to hold Bashar al-Assad accountable."

US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson on Monday called the attacks "gruesome".

"The Assad regime, backed by Russia, is hoping the world will forget the atrocities that have occurred in Syria. We will not," Watson said in a statement.



Children in Gaza Defy Trauma to Return to School

A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
TT
20

Children in Gaza Defy Trauma to Return to School

A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A Palestinian child plays next to empty ammunition containers in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Children have returned to school in Gaza, taking classes in tents or in the rubble of schools where families sheltered during the war, but trauma, aid blockades and the threat of more fighting could derail their drive to learn.

At least 14,500 children were killed in the war and thousands wounded, according to UNICEF. More than 400 teachers were also killed, the UN says, and now most of Gaza's children need mental health support for trauma, aid agencies say.

Children are not necessarily just picking up from where they left off when the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, "because of all the learning loss and the deep psychological impact of the war," said Kate McLennan, Middle East regional advisor on education at rights group War Child.

"There is also trauma attached to schools, which are generally understood as places of learning and safety and where you go to play with your friends (but have) been used as shelters," she said, Reuters reported.

"So, there is that alternative use of a school which has a psychological impact on children."

A fragile truce was declared between Hamas and Israel in January and as of March 3, more than 150,000 students had enrolled in 165 government schools, with over 7,000 teachers mobilised, the UN said, citing the Education Ministry in Gaza.

But the challenges are huge.

More than 658,000 school-aged children do not have access to formal education and almost 95% of school buildings have been damaged by Israeli strikes and fighting with 88% of them needing major reconstruction, said a report by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster, which includes UN agencies and other international aid groups.

Desks and chairs have been pulverised and teaching materials destroyed while reconstruction has been delayed by aid blockades by Israel.

The blockades have impeded efforts to establish more learning spaces and rebuild damaged schools, said Alun McDonald, head of media and external relations at Islamic Relief, a British-based charity.

"Hundreds of large tents that were meant to be used for temporary learning spaces have been blocked from entering (Gaza), even during the ceasefire period," McDonald said.

The head of the Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) has warned there could be another hunger crisis if the blockades continue. Israel says the blockades are designed to pressure Hamas in ceasefire talks.

"Children can't learn when they are being starved and bombed," McDonald said. "Getting children back into school is an urgent priority, but the challenges are absolutely massive."

 

LEARNING IMPEDED BY TRAUMA

 

This month Israel stopped deliveries of food, medicine and fuel into Gaza and cut electricity supply in a bid to pressure Hamas. Aid agencies said the power cut could threaten clean water supplies.

Around 32,000 students have registered to take their final high school exams, according to the UN, but there is a lack of tablets, internet access and charging stations to facilitate the process.

There is also a shortage of large tents and recreational and psycho-social kits to help students learn because of restrictions on aid, including the blocking of 10 pre-approved trucks carrying basic education supplies in February, UN agencies said.

But it is not just the physical damage and shortages that are holding children back.

"One of the things that we know from our work in all conflict and post-conflict and development contexts is that the psychological trauma and the psychosocial support needs of children are so high that it's related to brain development as well," said McLennan.

"The academic content is not going to stick if the conditions of the brain are not ready to ... deal with that," she said.

A study by academics and UNRWA last year said the war could set the education of children in Gaza back by up to five years.

"The lost education will affect an entire generation of children in Gaza for the rest of their lives," McDonald said.