U.N. Experts Visit Alleged Syria Chemical Site
U.N. inspectors Monday reached a site near Syria's capital of a suspected chemical weapons attack to launch an investigation, meeting doctors and casualties, online videos showed and an activist said.
"The inspectors managed to enter the town of Moadamiyet al-Sham with civilians, and visited the Red Crescent center where they met doctors," Abu Nadim, an activist in Damascus province, told Agence France Presse via Skype.
Abu Nadim said the inspectors were wearing helmets and bullet-proof jackets and were accompanied by their own security detail, who carried walkie-talkies.
In videos posted online, with faint sound quality, the inspectors appeared in a makeshift hospital, wearing blue helmets and speaking English. A doctor translates for an inspector as a man speaks, next to someone in a surgical mask.
The inspectors can also be seen with a nurse near the bed where a man is lying. One inspector takes notes as the rest of the group looks on.
The experts spoke to the victims of the suspected chemical attack, despite their convoy coming under sniper fire, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said.
The United Nations has made "a strong complaint" to both the Syrian government and opposition rebels over the sniper attack, Ban said in a video statement from Seoul.
Despite the "very dangerous circumstances" faced by the team, he said the investigators "visited two hospitals, they interviewed witnesses, survivors and doctors, they also collected some samples."
According to U.N. officials, the hospitals are in the Moadamiyet al-Sham district near Damascus.
A sniper attacked the U.N. convoy when it made an initial attempt to enter Ghouta, east of Damascus, where hundreds of people were killed in an alleged chemical weapons attack last Wednesday.
Opposition rebels and the government accuse each other of using the banned weapons.
They have also blamed each other for the sniper attack.
Ban said he had instructed his disarmament envoy, Angela Kane, who is in Damascus, "to register a strong complaint to the Syrian government and authorities of opposition forces" over the shooting and to ensure the security of the investigation team.
On Sunday, four days after the alleged attacks in which opposition groups say regime forces killed hundreds of civilians with chemical agents, Damascus gave the green light for a group of U.N. experts to visit the areas of Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyet al-Sham on the outskirts of Damascus to investigate.
This came amid mounting pressure and accusations of responsibility against President Bashar Assad for the strikes from Western countries, which are weighing military action in Syria.
The U.N. mission is aimed at determining if a chemical weapons attack actually took place, but will not investigate who was responsible for any attack. Syria has rejected responsibility, in turn accusing the rebels of using chemical arms.
Source: Agence France Presse
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