The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has released a report that found the Assad regime responsible for the deadly chemical weapons attack on Douma, which killed dozens of civilians. <\/p>\n
The report refutes the Russian claim that the April 7, 2018 attack was carried out by the opposition.<\/p>\n
The report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that, around 7:30 pm local time on April 7, 2018 at least one Mi-8\/17 helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force, departing from Dumayr airbase and operating under the control of the Tiger Forces, dropped two yellow cylinders which hit two residential buildings in a central area of the city releasing chlorine killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more.<\/p>\n
This report marks the ninth instance of chemical weapons use independently attributed to the Assad regime by UN and OPCW mechanisms.<\/p>\n
The report also points out that the IIT received credible information that Russian forces were co-located at Dumayr airbase alongside the Tiger Forces, and that at the time of the attack, the airspace over Douma was exclusively controlled by the Syrian Arab Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces.<\/p>\n
The United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany demanded that the Assad regime must immediately comply with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and relevant UN Security Council resolutions. <\/p>\n
Syria must fully declare and destroy its chemical weapons program and allow the deployment of OPCW staff to its country to verify it, the Foreign Ministers of the four countres said in a statement.<\/p>\n
They called on the Russia to stop shielding Syria from accountability for its use of chemical weapons. <\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, and Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock alleged that in the aftermath of Syria’s chemical attack on April 7, 2018, Russian military police helped the Syrian regime obstruct OPCW access to the site of the attack and attempted to sanitize the site. Russian and Syrian troops also staged photographs later disseminated online in an attempt to support its fabricated narratives of this incident, they added. <\/p>\n