Global chemical arms inspectors are to take the unprecedented step of exhuming some bodies of victims in the Syrian town of Douma as they work to verify last month’s alleged chemical attack, a media report said on Thursday.
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) director-general Ahmet Uzumcu told the Financial Times that the organization’s fact-finding mission had already gathered more than 100 “environmental samples” since getting access to the site northeast of Damascus on April 21.
The OPCW’s mission to Douma was launched after footage from an apparent April 7 onslaught horrified the world and prompted unparallelled strikes on Syrian military installations, but inspectors, in a bid to find further evidence of alleged chlorine and sarin use in the attack, in which medics and rescuers say more than 40 people were killed, are now looking at “ways to exhume and take some biomedical samples,” Uzumcu said.
“It is a very sensitive process. That’s why they are very cautious. Although our experts have been able to attend some autopsies in the past, this is going to be the first time we have exhumed bodies,” he told the newspaper.
The Hague, Netherlands-based OPCW confirmed that inspectors are indeed looking to conduct autopsies on the bodies, adding that the fact-finding mission “is continuing to explore all avenues for collecting evidence.”
Uzumcu told the Financial Times that it could be a month before the mission publishes its report on Douma, but another OPCW official said that it “is premature to speculate as to when the report will be ready for sharing” with the watchdog’s member states.
The OPCW mission gained access to Douma on April 21 after several delays, but experts have said chemical traces — if they existed — could still be found, including in the bodies of the alleged victims.
Damascus and Moscow have accused Syrian volunteer rescue workers known as the White Helmets of staging the video footage at the behest of the US and its allies.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.
RSS