
A man carries the body of a dead child, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah
BEIRUT | A suspected Syrian government chemical attack killed at least 58 people, including 11 children, in the northwestern province of Idlib on Tuesday, a monitor, medics and rescue workers in the rebel-held area said.
A Syrian military source strongly denied the army had used any such weapons.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack, believed to have been carried out by Syrian army jets, caused many people to choke, and some had foam coming out of their mouths. All the children were under the age of eight.
"This morning, at 6:30 a.m., warplanes targeted Khan Sheikhoun with gases, believed to be sarin and chlorine," said Mounzer Khalil, head of Idlib's health authority. The attack had killed more than 50 people and wounded 300, he said.
"Most of the hospitals in Idlib province are now overflowing with wounded people," Khalil told a news conference in Idlib.
The air strikes that hit the town of Khan Sheikhoun, in the south of rebel-held Idlib, killed at least 58 people, said the Observatory, a British-based war monitoring group.
Warplanes later struck near a medical point where victims of the attack were receiving treatment, the Observatory and civil defense workers said.
The civil defense, also known as the White Helmets - a rescue service that operates in opposition areas of Syria - said jets struck one of its centers in the area and the nearby medical point.
It would mark the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since sarin gas killed hundreds of civilians in Ghouta near the capital in August 2013. Western states said the Syrian government was responsible for the 2013 attack. Damascus blamed rebels.
MILITARY DENIES
The Syrian military source on Tuesday denied allegations that government forces had used chemical weapons.
The army "has not and does not use them, not in the past and not in the future, because it does not have them in the first place", the source said.
A series of investigations by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found that various parties in the Syrian war have used chlorine, sulfur mustard gas and sarin.
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