Perpetrators go unpunished after 7 years of chemical attacks on Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood

2016 was a dark year against the people of Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, as they were bombed with forbidden chemical weapons by the mercenaries of the Turkish occupation army during their violent attacks on the neighborhood.

In addition to the use of chemical weapons, the mercenaries committed war crimes for which they have not been held accountable until now, through shelling, sniping, kidnapping, and other operations, which affected civilians in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood and were documented by international organizations such as Amnesty International, through reports based on the testimonies of affected people and satellite images.

Details of use of chemical weapons

Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood was bombed with toxic materials at least three times, during which dozens suffered from suffocation and some of them lost their lives.

The first time the neighborhood was bombed with chemicals was on March 8, 2016, and on April 7 of the same year the neighborhood was bombed for the second time with these materials, and for the third time it was on April 8 of the same year.

The mercenaries of the "Jaysh al-Islam" affiliated with the Turkish occupation army issued a statement at that time in which they admitted that they used chemical materials in the bombing of Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, and justified their bombing as an individual act by one of their field commanders.

Nevertheless, the representatives of these mercenaries, such as Muhammad Alloush, remained as negotiator in many summits and meetings, such as preparing for a meeting with a delegation from the Damascus government at the beginning of 2016, and before that the 2015 Riyadh summit, and later assuming the task of "chief negotiator" in the Geneva 3 talks, despite all the crimes of mercenaries.

After 4 years Alloush became a negotiator, specifically at the beginning of 2020, he opened his luxurious restaurant in Istanbul, which he called "Iwan", it consists of several floors in the famous Fatih neighborhood in the city center and cost millions of dollars.

Some observers suggested that the mercenaries of the "Turkmen Front" affiliated with the Turkish occupation army used the chemicals to bomb the neighborhood, after being supplied with chemicals by the Turkish state through its border crossings with Syria.

A video tape was also circulated in April 2016 in the Ain al-Tal area, showing mercenaries from the "Turkman Front" preparing missiles to bomb the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, at the same time that 6 civilians were poisoned and suffocated. The administration of Martyr Khaled Fajr Hospital said that the received cases were suffering from convulsions and an above-normal body temperature accompanied by involuntary shivering and red eyes, leading to the occurrence of total suffocation for some of the victims.

The video was punctuated by Janissary music, it was written on the missiles in Turkish, "in retaliation for the martyrs of Istanbul," confirming the link between the mercenaries and the Turkish occupation.

The "Turkmen Front" is a mercenary group that later formed the core of many mercenary groups affiliated with Turkey such as "Al-Amshat (Sultan Suleiman Shah Division)" and "Sultan Murad Division" and all mercenary groups use Turkish names and symbols  committed daily crimes against The indigenous people of the occupied Afrin canton.

The fighter in the People's Protection Units in Aleppo, Jamil Dushka, who was one of those who suffocated during the use of chemical weapons in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, explained that the mercenaries, during their attacks in 2016, were immoral and crossed all laws and red lines, leading them to use chemical weapons.

Dushka mentioned that the mercenaries bombed the neighborhood using 40 cannons, whose ammunition was renewed in one location.

Concerning the details of the use of chemical weapons, Dushka said while we were confronting the mercenaries, we subjected to shelling the first of it's kind, as the explosion of the shell was accompanied by the spread of yellow smoke, which caused cases of suffocation among them. He added that Turkey provided the mercenaries with chemicals that were filmed in the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, where the mercenaries obtained chemicals from ammonium, in addition to masks sent by the Turkish occupation state to the mercenaries.

According to the official statistics of the General Council in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, the total number of victims reached in 2015; 150 civilians lost their lives in the attacks of the Turkish occupation mercenaries, including 40 children and 47 women, and 970 others were wounded, in addition to destroying 2,600 homes and shops, and causing damage to the infrastructure.

In 2016, the human losses amounted to about 200 civilians who lost their lives and 600 others were injured as a result of the continued attacks on the neighborhood by the mercenaries of the Turkish occupation army.

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ANHA