Chemical weapons used in Syria: UN

United Nation’s human rights investigators said on Tuesday they had ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe that limited amounts of chemical weapons had been used in Syria and warned that the shattered country was in ‘free-fall’.

In their latest report, investigators said they had received allegations that Syrian government forces and rebels had used the banned weapons. Increasing reports from the battlefield regarding use of chemical weapons have sounded alarm bells in the West, lending urgency to a new diplomatic push to end the war. 

US Secretary of state John Kerry said last week the use of chemical weapons was unacceptable while the UN commission said it examined four reported toxic attacks in March and April but could not determine which side was behind them. ‘There are reasonable grounds to believe that limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used. However, it has not been possible, on the evidence available, to determine the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrators’ Paulo Pinheiro, who chairs the UN commission of inquiry, told a news conference in Geneva.

‘The witnesses we have interviewed include victims, refugees and medical staff,’ Pinheiro said, declining to be more specific for reasons of confidentiality. President Bashar al-Assad’s government and its opponents have also accused each other of using chemical weapons. Syria’s ambassador, Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui, in a debate at UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday questioned the ‘neutrality and professionalism’ of the panel.

Russian ambassador Alexey Borodavkin called for sending UN experts to Khan al-Assal in the northern Aleppo province, where an alleged chemical weapon strike took place on 19 March, one of the four cited by the inquiry.

‘In this connection, we should recall that Damascus is ready to accept this group,’ he said. A UN team of inspectors has so far been denied access to Syria and has been unable to establish whether chemical weapons have been used.

The UN rights team comprising over 20 investigators conducted 430 interviews from 15 January to 15 May among refugees in neighboring countries as well as those still in Syria. But findings remained inconclusive. It is vital that a separate team of experts be given full access to Syria to collect samples from victims and sites of alleged attacks, the rights investigators said. In any case, atrocities committed with conventional weapons far outweighed any casualties from the use of chemical agents, Pinheiro said, noting the absence of a large-scale toxic attack.