Rescue teams working in Syria in areas controlled by the opposition said that late Monday a helicopter threw containers with poisonous gas in Sarakeb city, near which hours earlier was shot down a Russian military helicopter.
A spokesman for the Syrian Civil Protection said to”Reuters” that 33 people, mostly women, and children, were affected. The group presenting itself as an independent organization of volunteers for search and rescue of victims of hostilities, published a video on YouTube, which shows how men can not catch their breath and are being helped with oxygen masks. The group added that they suspected the use of chlorine, but can not confirm it.
The official Turkish Anadolu news agency quoted a medical source from the Idlib province, who reported at least 10 people with typical for chlorine poisoning episodes of choking and vomiting and also talked about the use of so-called barrel bombs with chlorine from the aviation of Bashar al-Assad.
“Medium-sized barrels fell containing toxic gasses. The Syrian Civil Defence was not able to determine the type of the gas,” said its spokesman. There is no reaction from Moscow or Damascus yet.
Officials in Damascus and the opposition forces deny that they used chemical weapons in the ongoing for more than 5 years civil war. The Syrian government and Russia have accused the rebels of such attacks. In April Mohammed Alush of the negotiation team of the opposition accused the Syrian regime of 43 attacks with chemical weapons and 13 with chlorine.
Russian transport helicopter Mi-8 was shot down on Monday, the five people on board were killed and the bodies of some of them were dragged and abused by men at the crash site. This is the largest officially recognized loss of Russian troops in the conflict from the inclusion of the country in September 2015 in it.
No group has claimed responsibility for the incident, although in the region operates the jihadist group Jaish al-Fatah.
