BBC News: Chemical Attack in Syria

More than 40 Syrians including children were reported dead after a chemical weapons attack in Douma, a town once held by Syrian rebels. International investigators cannot enter the area besieged by war. Syria’s brutal regime, supported by Russia, has focused attacks on areas once held by rebels where evacuations of fighters and family members are underway, reports BBC News. Russia offers no rationale for why rescue workers would present a video showing lifeless bodies and rushed treatment of children. “The Syrian-American Medical Society said more than 500 people were brought to medical centres in Douma, in the Eastern Ghouta region, near the capital Damascus, with symptoms ‘indicative of exposure to a chemical agent,’ including breathing difficulties, bluish skin, mouth foaming, corneal burns and ‘the emission of chlorine-like odour,’” notes the report. Syria’s control of eastern Ghouta is described as the regime’s biggest success since the fall of Aleppo. Not long after the chemical attack was reported, missiles hit a Syrian military airbase near Homs, killing 14 including Iranians. “Israel has said it will not allow Iran, its arch-foe, to set up bases in Syria or operate from there,” reports BBC. The UN Security Council is meeting today, and the United States and France promise a firm response. – YaleGlobal