Government forces killed more than 1300 people near Damascus in a pre-dawn rocket attack that released nerve gas on three residential suburbs. The shocking images include many dead, including women and children. Most of the people were still sleeping. If it is confirmed to be nerve gas, this would represent the most serious chemical weapons since 1988 when Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds.
Though the Syrian government denies that it used the chemical weapons, symptoms consistent with the effect of deadly Sarin nerve gas are seen in graphic pictures of victims provided to news agencies. The victims looked pale and without visible injuries.
Doctors in Syria claim that they don’t have the right medication to handle the cases and are treating the people with vinegar and water. The dead are being buried in mass graves.
World leaders condemned the attack. The fighting in Syria has led as many as 35,000 refugees to flee to Iraq.
“My attention was then called from the scene. There seemed to be a little time of peace. Once more the inhabitants of the earth were presented before me; and again everything was in the utmost confusion. Strife, war, and bloodshed, with famine and pestilence, raged everywhere. Other nations were engaged in this war and confusion. War caused famine. Want and bloodshed caused pestilence. And then men’s hearts failed them for fear, ‘and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.’” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 1, page 268