Victims of one of Bashar al Assad’s worst atrocities are demanding he’s hauled back from Moscow and put on trial for gassing more than 1,400 of their relatives.
Assad’s sarin attack in 2013 on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta was cold, calculating and nearly changed the whole way Britain and America handled his Syrian regime.
Now he has been toppled there is an opportunity to bring the former president to justice, his victims hope.
Image: Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, was the site of a sarin gas attack in 2013
Britain and America at first considered military action to punish Assad for the gassing in Ghouta and for similar attacks.
But cold feet on both sides of the Atlantic meant Assad got away with it and Barack Obama’s infamous red line on Syria was not enforced.
Latest Syria updates: Moscow ‘establishes contact’ with rebel group
You can arguably draw another line from that episode all the way to Putin’s decision later to ignore Western threats over Ukraine.
More on Syria
Related Topics:
Ghouta is less than 10 miles from Assad’s presidential palace. He perpetrated one of this century’s worst war crimes on the edges of his own capital.
Sarin is a nerve agent. It destroys the nervous system’s ability to function. Victims cannot regulate their breathing leading to asphyxiation.
It is a very nasty way to die. Its production and use has been banned worldwide since the 1990s.
Image: Wafiqa lost two of her sons and two of her grandsons when Assad’s regime used sarin gas in Ghouta in August 2013
Wafiqa lost two of her sons and two of her grandsons that night in August 2013. She wept as she recalled the terrible events of that night.
“They brought them to me, telling me they were dead. They said ‘come take them’… young men killed in a chemical attack. They were naked and what was coming out of their mouth was unbelievable. It was like soap frothing out of their throats,” she said.
Image: People told their stories outside the clinic where victims were taken
We went to the clinic nearby where most of the victims died.
People gathered to tell us their stories.
Kamel lost his two brothers and parents and was put into a coma after becoming engulfed in the poison. “I started seeing white around me, a thick powdery cloud of smooth, almost silky white smoke in the sky,” he said.
Image: Kamel said he was poisoned and his two brothers and parents died
Fadi arrived to find both parents, a brother and cousins dead. He told us the veins in his father’s forehead had exploded as he died from the poisoning.
“We were in shock, we started crying. All around were dead bodies on the ground. People were in cars, the engines were still on, but the people were dead,” he said.
Image: Fadi lost both parents, a brother and cousins in the sarin attack
Image: He showed the basement of the clinic where victims were treated
We were taken down to the basement of the building and shown where the victims were treated and where the bodies piled up.
Spreaker This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies. To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies. You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once. You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies. To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
Enable Cookies Allow Cookies Once
👉Listen to The World With Richard Engel And Yalda Hakim on your podcast app👈
Footage taken that night shows scenes of utter terror. At least 1,400 people died, many after being exposed to the nerve agent when they rushed to help others.
The bodies were taken here, and placed in five trenches, shoulder to shoulder, three bodies deep. Kassam helped bury the dead.
Image: Victims of the sarin gas attack were buried in trenches
Image: Kassam, who helped bury the dead, says it was like an ‘apocalypse’
“It was like the apocalypse we could not believe the way they were attacking us. We started putting entire families together. We tried to put the kids, the parents, and even the grandparents together.”
The world failed to punish Assad for this and many other chemical attacks – as many as 300 are thought to have been carried out.
Read more:Syria: Inside the ‘coffin’ cellsUS ‘pilgrim’ locked up by Assad regime found barefootHorrific conditions for prisoners of regime
Image: Relatives of those killed want Assad brought back to Syria and punished
For his victims in Ghouta there is one way to make up for that, bring him back to Syria and have him punished as he did so many others.
One said: “He should suffer and then be sent to the body crusher. And in the same way that our people were crushed and rivers of blood came from them, the same should happen to him.”
It will take years for Syria to recover from the Assad regime, but absolutely crucial to that will be finding justice for his victims.
Source : Sky News
