The World Health Organization registered its alarm Wednesday over the apparent use of toxic chemicals in a Syrian attack that killed at least 70 people, saying it’s part of a disturbing pattern and taxing hospital capacity in the region.
U.S. officials blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad for the Tuesday attack in Idlib province, in which dozens of patients, including children, appeared to suffocate or have trouble breathing after airstrikes.
The WHO, a public health arm of the U.N., said the likelihood that attackers used poisonous gases is “amplified” by the lack of obvious external injuries in those experiencing symptoms, such as serious respiratory distress.
“The images and reports coming from Idlib today leave me shocked, saddened and outraged. These types of weapons are banned by international law because they represent an intolerable barbarism,” said Dr. Peter Salama, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program.
WHO said many victims in the region had to be shuttled to Turkey because local facilities are overwhelmed or inoperable due to structural damage from the ongoing fighting in Syria, which is steeped in a yearslong civil war.
Officials said the attack followed other reports of toxic agents being wielded against innocents in Syria, such as chlorine use in and around Aleppo last year, and an infamous sarin-gas attack in Ghouta, near Damascus, in August 2013.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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