Chemical attack in Syria | Three caregivers say they were forced to give false testimony

(Douma) More than six years after a deadly chlorine attack on the Syrian town of Douma, two doctors and a nurse who treated victims told AFP of the pressure they faced to give false testimony and deny any use of chemical weapons .

On April 7, 2018, Douma, the last rebel stronghold in Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus, suffered intense bombardments from pro-government forces.

A building near a field hospital is hit. Very quickly, activists and rescuers denounced a chlorine attack which left 43 dead – a story denied by the power of Bashar al-Assad and his Russian ally.

Among the images circulating on social networks, a video filmed in the field hospital shows medical teams treating the injured, some lying on the ground, being sprayed with water.

Damascus security services will summon all the personnel who appear in this video, including two doctors and a nurse who gave exclusive interviews to AFP this weekend. These unprecedented testimonies would not have been possible even a month ago, before the fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8.

The three men confirmed that they were among 11 caregivers summoned to National Security headquarters after the attack.

Subsequently, “pressure” and intimidation from those in power forced them to provide false testimony to international investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

“Gun on the table”

Orthopedic surgeon Mohammad Al-Hanach felt obliged to attend the summons. “They told me they knew where to find my family” in Damascus, he explained to AFP.

Cautious, he first tries to provide “vague answers” ​​to the officer who is conducting his interrogation.

“He asked me, for example, what had happened that day, where I was, what I had seen,” the surgeon remembers.

Emergency doctor Hassan Ouyoun also had to answer similar questions.

“When I arrived in front of the investigator, a pistol was placed on the table, pointed at me,” he told AFP.

He said he “immediately understood what was expected of him”. “Everyone who was in the hospital was subjected to strong pressure, sometimes even thinly veiled threats,” he adds.

He also admits to having “denied” the chemical attack and tried not to be too precise in his answers.

He still remembers his interrogation: “Where were the dead taken?” I don’t know “How to explain cases of suffocation?” By the dust and smoke caused” by bombings and “military operations,” he said.

Mouwafaq Nisrine, a nurse at the time, was also questioned, after being seen in a video where he patted the back of a little girl who was doused with water and undressed, who was coughing up mucous membranes after inhaling a toxic gas.

“They told us there was no chemical attack […] that they wanted to put an end to these claims,” he recalls.

“I was under pressure because my family lives in Douma, like most of the medical staff's families,” he says.

“Doctors of the Revolution”

In a report, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) accused Damascus in January 2023 of carrying out the chlorine attack which left 43 dead.

According to its investigators, “there are reasonable grounds to believe” that at least one Syrian air force helicopter dropped two barrels of toxic gas on Douma.

After their interrogation in Damascus, the two doctors and the nurse had to repeat their answers in front of a camera to transmit them to the OPCW, they say.

“We were not in a position not to cooperate,” explains Mr. Hanach.

To their great surprise, the video, in which their comments were sometimes cut during editing, was broadcast by Syrian state television, he recalls.

“Certain expressions have been deleted or taken out of context” to serve the narrative of power, adds the doctor.

For emergency physician Hassan Ouyoun, overnight, he and his colleagues became “false witnesses”. Whereas “we were doctors of the revolution in a field hospital serving the population,” he pleads.

“Incomplete joy”

On April 14, in retaliation for the attack in Douma, the United States, France and the United Kingdom carried out a series of strikes on regime military positions.

The same day, the three caregivers were informed of the arrival of OPCW investigators to question them. Men in power force them to record the meeting.

“We had to repeat the narrative” of power, says Dr. Hanach.

On April 25, MM. Hanach, Ouyoun, Nisrine and four other witnesses leave Syria to reach The Hague, headquarters of the OPCW, to testify on “neutral ground”.

Russia announced at the time that, along with Damascus, it would present testimony to the OPCW to deny the “alleged” chemical attack.

OPCW investigators have reported the probable or proven use of chemical weapons in approximately 20 cases in Syria.

Concerning Douma, Doctor Hanach today says he is relieved that the false testimony he had to provide did not “affect the international investigation” which “proved” the use of chemical weapons.

But “the joy is incomplete, because people will truly obtain justice on the day when the guilty are punished.”