A team of experts from the global chemical weapons watchdog has been sent to Turkey to collect samples as part of an investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria on April 4 that killed 87 people.
Sources said the fact finding mission was sent from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW( in The Hague to gather bio-metric samples and interview survivors, sources told Reuters.
The OPCW mission will determine whether chemical weapons were used, but is not mandated to assign blame.
Sources added that the mission’s findings, expected in three to four, will be passed to a joint U N-OPCW investigation tasked with identifying individuals or institutions responsible for using chemical weapons.
On April 5, Turkey says it has findings which indicate that the attack which killed scores of people including children in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib was a chemical attack.
Health Minister Recep Akdag told reporters in Turkey’s northeastern province of Erzurum in comments broadcast live that around 30 people had been brought across the border to Turkish hospitals for treatment as of Tuesday.
He did not give details of the findings.
The U.S., Britain and France on Tuesday proposed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the attack, which they have blamed on Syrian government forces.
The Syrian military denied responsibility.
NAN reports that the suspected Syrian government chemical attack killed at least 58 people, including 11 children.
A Syrian military source strongly denied the army had used any such weapons.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack, believed to have been carried out by Syrian army jets, caused many people to choke, and some had foam coming out of their mouths.
All the children were under the age of eight.
NAN also reports that the World Health Organisation (WHO) said victims of the attack appeared to show symptoms consistent with reaction to a nerve agent.
“Some cases appear to show additional signs consistent with exposure to “organophosphorus” chemicals, a category of chemicals that includes nerve agents,” WHO said in a statement.
WHO has put the death toll at no fewer than 70.
The U.S. has said the deaths were caused by sarin nerve gas dropped by Syrian aircraft.
Sarin is an“ organophosporus” compound and a nerve agent.
WHO added that chlorine and mustard gas, which are also believed to have been used in the past in Syria, are not.
Russia has said it believes poison gas had leaked from a rebel chemical weapons depot struck by Syrian bombs.
A Russian Defence Ministry spokesman did not say which agent was used in the attack but said the rebels had used the same chemical weapons in Aleppo in 2016.
The WHO said it was likely that some kind of chemical was used in the attack because sufferers had no apparent external injuries and died from a rapid onset of similar symptoms, including acute respiratory distress.
