Image source: Reuters
According to a report by the Syrian American Medical Society in February 2016, around 1,491 people were killed and 14,581 injured in 161 documented chemical attacks in Syria, with more than a third of the attacks involving chlorine.
The report confirmed that the vast majority of documented attacks and the resulting civilian casualties were perpetrated by the Syrian regime against civilians, with most attacks occurring after the issuance of the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria in 2013.
The regime’s government denied responsibility for the “most devastating” chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta, Damascus in August 2013, in which sarin gas was used and more than 1,000 people were killed.
The 2013 Ghouta chemical attack prompted the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to compel the Syrian regime to accept the Chemical Weapons Convention through related resolutions issued by the OPCW’s Executive Council and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2118 in 2013.
The convention stipulates the cessation of use and elimination of Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles. Failure to address violations undermines the credibility of this resolution and others.
The Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria (CVDCS) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) as a partner in the initial investigations conducted by the fact-finding mission (FFM), whose reports were adopted as references for the mechanism’s investigations. The documentation center provided a list of evidence and witnesses that supported the mechanism’s investigations and conclusions.
Since World War I, chemical weapons have been considered one of the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction, with horrific, hidden, and painful inhumane effects.
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