Finding puts gas attack at feet of Assad government

Investigators from the global chemical weapons agency have found the Syrian regime responsible for a poison gas attack that killed 43 people in a suburb of Damascus in 2018, leaving victims choking to death in a basement.

In a report nearly five years in the making, the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons found that the canisters carrying poison gas had been dropped by a Syrian air force helicopter over Douma – then one of the last opposition strongholds near the Syrian capital.

The attack took place on 7 April 2018, as the years-long war wound down and Syrian forces attempted to remove rebels and their supporters from the area. The cylinders had carried high concentrations of chlorine.