60 minutes rewind
this past week syrian president bashar al-assad unleashed one of his heaviest bombardments on
civilians in a struggle to end the civil war that threatened his family's dynastic dictatorship
assad has committed just about every war crime under international law his worst atrocities
involve banned chemical weapons this is the story of one of those massacres it is hard to watch
and it is not for small children but it is important to see because chemical assaults
have now become routine in syria with nearly 200 over seven years this past november syria's ally
russia shut down the united nations investigation into who is responsible
but our investigation continues we have found a number of witnesses to a nerve gas attack that
happened on april 4th 2017. we'll begin with video that has not been seen until tonight
the images were shot by a syrian civil defense volunteered
so many victims fell at once first responders used fire hoses to wash them there was a chance a
small one that stripping contaminated clothes and dousing the skin might save a life these are the
people of a small farming town called khan shahoon they fell after a warplane dropped a bomb nearby
their civilians there's no military target here but the village does lie in territory
held by rebels fighting against the dictatorship of bashar al-assad
what is striking is the number of children inhaling just a hint of the gas overwhelmed
their nervous systems all of their nerves fired at the same time muscles seized and paralyzed lungs
left their last breath stuck in their throats the civil defense worker with the camera is repeating
the name of the village khan sheikhoun khan sheikhoun as though he feared the atrocity itself
might be washed away and forgotten very early in the morning at between 6 30 and 7 o'clock in
the morning on the 4th of april airplanes were flying around and over honsheikun edmond mallet
led the investigation of chemical attacks in syria for the united nations and the organization for
the prohibition of chemical weapons we have these airplanes flying these bombs launched
more than 100 people were killed more than 200 people were affected mainly children and women
the emergency response was coordinated by the famed white helmets
civil defense volunteers supervised by mustafa alhaj
some people were fainting he told us completely unconscious
there were cases of trembling and convulsions foam coming out of the respiratory tract and mouth
some people appeared to be already dead
he counted the bodies of more than 30 children
there were young children he told us i was treating them but it was already over
the doctor who was with us there said leave them they're dead young children
three months four months five months some two years old
the day before the attack warplanes bombed local hospitals
ensuring a longer trip to medical care
white helmet volunteers loaded those still gasping onto a truck
with 30 miles to go to reach one of the nearest surviving hospitals
where dr abdul hai tanari was working there were patients who had lost consciousness he told us
patients suffering from shortness of breath people were doing cpr
there were many children women the elderly
every age from the very first minute we were positive that the gas that was used
sarin nerve gas was invented in a nazi program in 1997 sarin and other chemical weapons were banned
by international law some of the patients from that day that are still in your mind
the case that affected me the most was one where there were two girls who were five and
six years old dr tanari said they seemed to be sisters they were brought to the hospital
and i started doing cpr right away but it was clear that the two girls had died hours ago
dr mahmoud told us a boy arrived gasping for breath with foam coming out of his mouth and with
pinpoint pupils we washed the boy we washed and we washed and we washed we gave him what treatment we
could and tried to resuscitate him but he didn't make it weren't you concerned about being exposed
yourself the situation is more desperate than i can describe he said there are no words it was
like judgment day the apocalypse you just can't even describe the scene can't even begin to
scratch the surface of explaining what happened we didn't have any protective equipment for gas
you're feeling the effects of this even now yes my voice he said do you hear my voice
the khan shahoon attack drew immediate retaliation from the trump administration which fired 59
cruise missiles into a syrian air base but only hours later according to doctors and witnesses
the syrian dictatorship dropped another banned chemical weapon a chlorine bomb
the worst of the chemical attacks came in 2013.
when 1400 civilians were killed by sarin near damascus in response the u.s and
russia pressed syria to hand over its chemical weapons 1400 tons of poisons were destroyed
so the attack on khan shahoon should not have been possible the head of the u.n investigation
edmund mullet told us the syrians had an explanation the syrians have been claiming
since the very beginning that this incident in hanshikun was staged it was something that was
created by the opposition by the rebels by the terrorists in order to blame the syrian government
they claimed that the bomb that created the crater was an ied an improvised explosive device that was
placed on the surface of the of the road of the asphalt that morning ied contained sarin
and that's how it was released but it did not come from an aerial bomb
evidence at khan shahoon was gathered by the white helmets
chemical attacks have become so common that advanced equipment
and training are being provided by an international charity called mayday rescue
we collected samples from the body of the missile and a soil sample mohammed kayal
told us we also took a sample from the clothes of the affected as well as animal samples a cat
a pigeon we took hair as well and the samples were all positive for saren
why was it so important to you to document what happened in the village
our job is to be humanitarians he said
the goal of the strike was to target civilians it
didn't target fighters on the front we must document a chemical strike such as this one
so we can show the entire world the story will continue after this
we spoke to the un's edmond millet about three hours before he lost his job a meeting of the
city council is called to order russia the syrian dictatorship's chief ally
ended millet's investigation with a veto in the security council
those against russia called his investigations results very disappointing who's using the saren
only the syrian government how do you know that well the investigations we have conducted have
proven that the sarin that has been used in in syria has come from the original stockpile
that was produced and created and distilled by the syrian government some years ago are these samples
yet we have been able to determine and compare what has been used in the field recently in
syria with the original stockpile and they match completely does anyone else in that theater of
war possess sarin gas to your knowledge no no nobody else because it's so difficult to produce
you need very sophisticated and big uh laboratories to do that the manipulation of
the sarin is extremely complicated it's extremely volatile one single drop here right now would be
killing everybody in this studio immediately so it's not anybody that can can do that
one question not answered by the un investigation was why why resort to a war crime
to find out we traveled into the province where khan shahoon is located
idlib province largely controlled by an islamic extremist group hayat tarir al-shan
here we found the dictatorship had used conventional bombs
against hospitals and schools in addition to the nerve gas in the neighborhoods
so what's the point of using the world's most grotesque weapon on civilians on children this
is a refugee camp in rebel occupied territory inside syria and there are hundreds of them they
dot the landscape millions of syrians have been forced from their homes the assad dictatorship is
essentially clearing out any part of the country that it cannot control bombing the hospitals kills
the here and now bombing the schools kills the future and dropping sarin suffocates whatever
might have been left of hope we found abu hassan in a refugee camp with his family at least what
remained of his family he lost two adult sons and a grandson in the gas at khan shahoon
my son he told us they brought him to a hospital in turkey and he died
his brother who came to rescue us while he got dizzy collapsed and he died my grandson
also died his wife um hassan told us my sons were young and these are their children what
was the fault of these children to live without a father what was their fault
how do you explain this to these children what can we tell them she said this one was injured with us
i told one your father is dead he said don't tell me dad is dead don't say that dad is dead
but what can we tell them how can they understand we have a neighbor poor woman her children her
grandchildren all 12 in the house died not a single one lived not a single one
this is a crime against humanity using chemical weapons if we allow this to happen in syria
this might happen somewhere else and if impunity prevails and people can carry out doing these
things without any consequences this might give ideas to others and i've said this to
the russians this will happen in many of your own republics and in the future if you don't help to
put an end to this right now but impunity does prevail bashar al-assad will soon win the war
he may remain president or step down in the course of negotiations but either way victors
never face judgment still even without a war crimes trial the evidence will remain indelible