Last week, despite the presence of a team of UN weapons inspectors in Damascus, chemical weapons were supposedly used in the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus - resulting in the death of between 500 and 1,300 people according to different estimates. As the international community lead by America, the UK, and France debate the efficacy of military intervention in Damascus and a UN convoy comes under sniper fire en route to assess claims of the use of chemical agents in East Ghouta, here is BEIRUTSTATEofMIND's take on events:
The attack came at perhaps a strange time. Over the last few weeks, the Assad regime seemed to be gaining the upperhand in Syria's complex, protracted civil war. UN Inspectors were in Damascus on a fact-finding mission to verify previous claims of the use of chemical weapons earlier in the year.
But in the early hours of Wednesday, August 21, reports began to spread on social media that chemical agents had been deployed in a number of towns in East and West Ghouta, districts on the eastern outskirts of Damascus. Harrowing videos surfaced on YouTube and Facebook showing panicked civilians on suburban streets struggling desperately, gasping for breath as others lay motionless on the ground around them. Other videos showed children foaming at the mouth, eyes open but lacking sentience, convulsing uncontrollably in overcrowded hospital wards. What's depicted in these videos hasn't been corroborated, but by the end of the day most of the videos showed rows of corpses, with bodies and faces unblemished as if in sleep, wrapped in white funeral shrouds. Children in diapers are side by side with men, noncombatants beside combatants.
As the sun set on Wednesday, the UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting in New York and estimates for the total dead ranged from 500 to 1,300 in what, if verified, would constitute the world's most lethal chemical attack since Saddam Hussein sanctioned gas attacks in Halubjah in 1988, killing between 3,000 and 5,000 Kurds.
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