AP – A Syrian family that survived a 2013 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people near the country’s capital, Damascus, said the ordeal they experienced haunts them to this day.
The August 21, 2013 attack targeted several Damascus suburbs, including Zamalka, where the Arbeeni family lives. Government forces of then-President Bashar Assad were blamed for the attack.
The Arbeenis remember how they locked themselves inside a windowless room in their home for hours, escaping the fate of dozens of their neighbours who perished in what was one of the deadliest moments of Syria’s civil war.
The gas that was used – sarin, an extremely toxic nerve agent – can kill in minutes.
The Syrian government denied it was behind the attack and blamed opposition fighters, an accusation the opposition rejected as Assad’s forces were the only side in the brutal civil war to posses sarin. The United States subsequently threatened military retaliation, with then-President Barack Obama saying Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be Washington’s “red line”.
“It was a horrifying night,” Hussein Arbeeni, 41, told The Associated Press.
The surface-to-surface missiles fell close to his family’s home without exploding, instead leaking the poisonous gas. Shortly after that, he said the family members had difficulties breathing, their eyes started to ache and they hearts beat faster and faster.
Arbeeni, his parents, his siblings and their families, as well as a neighbour – 23 people in all – rushed into the only room in their home without windows and closed the door.
He said he taped all around the door, soaked some clothes in water and rolled them up under the door to prevent the gas from coming in. “I even taped the key hole,” he said.
A few months earlier, Arbeeni said, the local first responders of the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as White Helmets, had instructed residents in the opposition-held suburbs of Damascus what to do in case of a chemical attack.
He remembers them saying they should cover their nose and mouth with a cloth soaked in water with white vinegar, and breathe through that.
They huddled for three hours inside the room – time that seemed endless that night. Outside, many people were dying.
“It is all because of Allah the Almighty and this locked room,” Arbeeni said of their survival.
Around daybreak, the White Helmets members rushed into their house, found the family inside the room on the ground floor and told them to leave the area immediately.
They ran into the street and saw dead bodies lying all around. A passing truck took the family on and gave them a ride. Their neighbour, who had fainted from the shock of the horrific scene, was taken away by paramedics.
“I was scared to look,” said Arbeeni’s mother, Khadija Dabbas, 66.
The family stayed for a few weeks some miles away from Zamalka but then came back. Despite Obama’s threat, in the end, Washington settled for a deal with Moscow to give up his chemical weapons’ stockpile.
But Assad’s government was widely believed to have kept some of the weapons and was accused of using them again – including a 2018 chlorine gas attack over Douma, another Damascus suburb, that killed 43 people.
Today, Arbeeni – remembering all the neighbors, friends and townspeople who perished – said he wants the “harshest punishment” for those behind the attack in Zamalka.
“All those children and innocent people who were killed should get justice,” he said, looking at his 12-year-old son, Laith, a baby at the time of the attack.
The new authorities in Syria are led by the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which late last month launched a stunning offensive from its northwestern stronghold that blitzed across large swaths of Syria and toppled Assad. They have vowed to bring to justice former Syrian government officials blamed for atrocities.
But times are still unsettled – a few short weeks after Assad’s ouster, no one knows what Syria’s future will look like.
“The overthrow of the Assad government creates the possibility of justice for thousands of victims of atrocities, including those killed by chemical and other banned weapons,” said Deputy Director Adam Coogle with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.
“But justice will only happen if the new authorities prioritise it and urgently act to preserve evidence,” Coogle added. He urged for immediate access for United Nations agencies and international experts who would create a comprehensive plan to ensure that Syrians can seek justice and accountability.
