This is the story of “Horror and fear, children who cry and people who run”, “The astonishment at the sight of the corpses and the noise of the bombardments”, according to testimonies in support of the complaint filed in Paris on Monday 1er March for “Crimes against humanity and war crimes”. This is the first time that a procedure has targeted Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in France for the use of chemical weapons against its population.
It concerns two chemical attacks committed in eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, during the month of August 2013. Those of August 4 and 5, 2013 on Adra and Douma left at least 450 wounded. The bombings of the night of August 20 to 21, 2013 marked a further turning point in their violence, killing more than 1,000 and injuring several thousand.
“A systematic practice”
Among the survivors of these attacks who testify is a Franco-Syrian victim, supported by the Syrian Center for the Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), which also became a civil party. For the plaintiffs, represented by lawyers Jeanne Sulzer and Clémence Witt, French criminal law is applicable and French courts are competent to hear the facts they denounce. This complaint adds to an already thick Syrian file, denouncing other crimes – including torture and enforced disappearances – committed by the regime, and a similar procedure launched in Germany at the end of October 2020.
Supported by numerous testimonies from survivors and witnesses from the very heart of the security apparatus, and supported by several organizations, including the Violation Documentation Center, VDC) which had its offices in Douma, the complaint denounces an operating mode set up as a strategy by the authorities to take back territories then under the control of the rebellion.
She describes the inhabitants running from the roofs of buildings to basements, caught in the grip of conventional artillery fire and attacks with sarin, a deadly nerve agent, which spreads further down the floors. Due to the intensity of the bombardments, the family of one of the survivors could not take refuge on the roof of their home to protect themselves from the gas. A witness evokes the inert bodies which mark his route, the corpses piled up in the hospital and even in the street, the women, children and men who suffocate, twist, vomit, “People hitting the walls”, poisoned with sarin.
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