The Monday edition of newspapers carried pictures of infants and children with masks on their faces struggling to breathe in Syrian hospitals. If these heart-wrenching pictures of innocent children fail to move the international community and authorities responsible for ensuring peace in the world, then we can be sure that we are losing all the hope and faith in people and the international organisations such as the United Nations which are turning very fast into just scarecrows, life-less and soul-less forums.
It is surprising to see that only few countries took time even to condemn the heinous crime against humanity and it is heartening to hear that Qatar was very prompt and quick in condemning the chemical weapons attack on innocent and helpless people in the eastern Syrian city of Douma.
The State of Qatar called for an urgent international investigation into the incident and wanted the perpetrators of war crimes in Syria be brought to international justice. A statement issued by Qatar’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday expressed the State of Qatar’s shock at this horrific crime that shook the conscience of humanity, stressing the impunity of war criminals in Syria has led to their continued perpetration of violence and atrocities and undermined efforts to achieve justice and redress for the victims.
The statement added that any political solution in Syria will not lead to a successful and sustainable outcome without punishing those who are involved in the commission of these terrible crimes. It portrayed the silence as a stain on the forehead of humanity.
It was not the first or second time that hapless Syrians were subjected to such terrible chemical attacks. The Syrian Network for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based non-government organisation, said in a report that the Syrian regime has carried out 214 chemical attacks across the country since 2011 and the latest attack adds one more to it. These attacks are part of an attempt to force civilians out of opposition-held areas.
Similar attacks were carried out in Eastern Ghouta in 2013 and Khan Sheikhoun in 2017. And in 2016, chemical attacks were carried out to expel civilians at neighbourhoods in Aleppo’s centre. In 2013, the regime said it will destroy its chemical weapons stock. After signing an agreement on September 15, 2013, the weapons were destroyed as the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) came into play and the process was over by August 19, 2014.
However, the organisation destroyed only the stocks the regime had revealed. The latest attack shows that the regime managed to hide some chemical weapons. It is frightening to see that the regime still has a stockpile of such weapons and it will not hesitate to unleash it again and again. The international community led by the UN’s Security Council should take immediate action to avoid such a man-made and deliberate calamity in Syria.
