Syrian family recounts horrors of 2013 chemical attack near Damascus

ZAMALKA, Syria — A Syrian family who survived a 2013 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds near the country’s capital, Damascus, says their ordeal still haunts them today. ‘today.

The August 21, 2013 attack targeted several suburbs of Damascus, including Zamalka, where the Arbeeni family lives. President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces have been blamed for the attack.

The Arbeenis remember how they locked themselves for hours in a windowless room in their home, escaping the fate of dozens of their neighbors who perished in what was one of the deadliest moments of the Syrian civil war.

The gas used – sarin, an extremely toxic nerve agent – ​​can kill in minutes.

The Syrian government denied being behind the attack and blamed opposition fighters, a charge the opposition rejected because Assad’s forces were the only party in the brutal civil war to possess sarin gas. The United States later threatened military retaliation, with then-President Barack Obama saying that Assad’s use of chemical weapons would constitute Washington’s “red line.”

“It was a horrible night,” Hussein Arbeeni, 41, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The surface-to-surface missiles fell near his family’s home without exploding, releasing toxic gas. Soon after, he said the family members had difficulty breathing, their eyes began to hurt and their hearts were beating faster and faster.

Arbeeni, his parents, siblings and their families, and a neighbor – 23 people in total – rushed into the only room in their windowless house and closed the door.

He said he duct-taped everything around the door, soaked some clothes in water and rolled them up under the door to keep the gas out. “I even taped up the keyhole,” he said.

A few months earlier, Arbeeni said, local Syrian Civil Defense first responders, also known as the White Helmets, had asked residents of opposition-controlled Damascus suburbs what to do in the event of a chemical attack.

He remembers being told to cover their noses and mouths with a cloth soaked in water laced with white vinegar and to breathe through it.

They snuggled in the room for three hours – a time that seemed endless that night. Outside, many people were dying.

“It’s all because of God and that locked room,” Arbeeni says of their survival.

Around dawn, the White Helmets rushed into their house, found the family in the downstairs room and told them to leave immediately.

They ran into the street and saw dead bodies everywhere. A passing truck picked up the family and gave them a ride. Their neighbor, who had fainted from the shock of the horrific scene, was taken away by paramedics.

“I was afraid to look,” said Arbeeni’s mother, Khadija Dabbas, 66.

The family stayed a few weeks a few kilometers from Zamalka then returned.

Despite Obama’s threat, Washington ultimately reached a deal with Moscow for Russian-backed Assad to give up his chemical weapons stockpiles.

But Assad’s government was widely believed to have kept some of these weapons and was accused of reusing them, including in a 2018 chlorine gas attack on Douma, another Damascus suburb, that killed 43 people.

Today, Arbeeni – remembering all the neighbors, friends and city residents who perished – says he wants the “severest punishment” to be meted out to those responsible for the Zamalka attack.

“All these children and innocent people who were killed should get justice,” he said, looking at his 12-year-old son, Laith, who was a baby at the time of the attack.

The new authorities in Syria are led by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which last month launched a resounding offensive from its stronghold in the country’s northwest that swept across vast swaths of Syria and toppled Assad. They pledged to bring former Syrian government officials accused of atrocities to justice.

But times are still unstable: just weeks after Assad’s ouster, no one knows what Syria’s future will look like.

“The overthrow of the Assad government creates the opportunity to achieve justice for thousands of victims of atrocities, including those killed by chemical weapons and other banned weapons,” said Adam Coogle, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch.

“But justice will only be served if the new authorities prioritize it and act urgently to preserve the evidence,” Coogle added. He demanded immediate access to UN agencies and international experts who would create a comprehensive plan to ensure Syrians can seek justice and accountability.

On Wednesday, a dozen people visited the Zamalka Martyrs’ Cemetery and the graves of local people killed during Syria’s nearly 14-year war.

Arbeeni’s brother, Hassan, pointed to a part of the cemetery that contains a mass grave. There are no names of the dead, only a sign in Arabic that says: “August 2013”.

“The martyrs of the chemical attack are here,” Hassan said, reciting a Muslim prayer for the dead.