In the early hours of this morning there were reports of chemical weapons attacks in the
Ghouta region of Syria.
Within hours a huge number of videos were being uploaded showing gruesome scenes at
a makeshift hospital on the outskirts of Damascus.
There are videos of people convulsing, having difficulty breathing, with running noses and
this disturbing video showing a shivering young man with pinpoint pupils, all of which
are early symptoms of exposure to the nerve agent Sarin.
Now that's not to say it proves this was a Sarin attack but there is evidence that it
could have been.
In this video a doctor reports some of the details of what had happened.
He says that he alone had to move the bodies of 50 children he also says there have been
many more deaths, saying that more than 200 oxygen canisters were being used to try and
save people's lives.
The number of dead was initially estimated as dozens but local groups have been reporting
hundreds of people dead, in one case as many as six hundred.
So just like so many cases of alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the details are
really unclear.
Immediately two pro-opposition groups claimed the government was responsible for the attack.
Then via.
state media, President Assad's regime has flatly denied any involvement saying the reports
were "baseless"
And it would be odd timing.
On Sunday a UN chemical weapons investigation team arrived in Damascus, just down the road
from where this incident happened.
Sarin is a liquid nerve agent that evaporates at the same sort of temperatures as water
- so in a hot, dry country like Syria, it would be normally be pretty much untraceable
after just a few days.
So it does seem a bit weird that the government would launch a Sarin attack at the exact moment
when the UN is most able to get to the scene quickly.
Especially given that Assad's army has been making gains around the capital recently.
The government has said that the reported attacks are just "an attempt to divert the
UN chemical weapons investigation commission away from carrying out its duties."
There have been numerous allegations of chemical weapons attacks in Syria in the past year
or so with a number of subsequent allegations that footage has been faked.
And those questions will probably be raised again, but the sheer amount of footage that
has been uploaded and the horrific and chaotic nature of it makes it hard to believe this
was some sort of stage managed event.
But if this was a Sarin attack, then you'd expect the people carrying the victims into
hospital and possibly the doctors to be affected too.
In an interview with the Brown Moses blog, a chemical weapons expert from Allen Vanguard
said if recently contaminated people are not subjected to any decontamination procedures
then there would be a contamination risk.
He goes on to say that individual protective clothing and respirators would have to be
worn by everyone coming into possible contact with it.
There's no evidence of that happening here but again, you can't rule it out based on
just these videos.
The point is that details are very, very rarely clear when it comes to Syria especially when
it comes to chemical weapons so we shouldn't be jumping to any conclusions just yet.
There are links in the description if you want to find out more about Sarin and alleged
chemical weapons use in Syria.
There's also a playlist of more than 70 videos from this particular incident - although we
should warn you many of them feature dead or dying people, including children and they
are extremely disturbing.