‘Obscene masquerade’: Russia criticised over Douma chemical attack denial

Russia has been accused of carrying out an “obscene masquerade” for transporting 17 Syrian people to Europe to assert that no chemical weapons attack occurred in the town of Douma earlier this month.

The supposed witnesses were unveiled by Russia at the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague in an attempt to discredit western claims that Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime mounted the chemical attack on April 7.

The US, UK and France launched a cruise missile strike at three alleged Syrian chemical weapons sites in retaliation for the Douma attack, bringing relations between the west and Russia to its worst point since the height of the cold war.

At an hour-long briefing on Thursday a succession of Douma residents, including medical staff from the town’s only hospital, insisted there was no chemical attack, but that some people in a state of near hysteria had mistaken their breathing difficulties caused by smoke as a chemical weapons attack.

WARNING: Graphic image of aftermath of purported Syrian gas attack below

Surrounded by Syrian and Russian officials, the doctors and paramedics in the group largely suggested that victims arriving at the hospital claiming to have suffered a chemical attack had after checks emerged to have suffered no such thing.