Distressing footage of a young child covered in deep ‘chemical’ burns has emerged in the aftermath of Turkey’s sustained bombing of the Kurdish people in Syria. The video was taken at a hospital in Tal Tamr near the Ras al-Ayn border city at the centre of the heaviest fighting. The boy can be heard screaming ‘Dad stop the burning…I beg you’ before doctors were able to give him morphine with reports saying he spent 12 hours in searing pain waiting to be treated. British chemical weapons expert Hamish de-Bretton Gordon said the wounds were consistent with the use of chemical weapon white phosphorus. He told the Guardian: ‘The most likely culprit is white phosphorus. It is a horrific weapon, and has been used repeatedly during the Syrian civil war; unfortunately its use has become increasingly normalised.’ Sorry, this video isn't available any more.
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White phosphorus sticks to the skin and can not be put out
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The UN has announced it is investigating allegations Turkey has used the banned weapon, known as Willie Pete when it was used in Vietnam.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also said it was ‘aware of the situation and is collecting information with regard to possible use of chemical weapons’.
White phosphorus sticks to the skin and burns in contact with moisture. It can not be put out and in some cases can burn through to the bone. The video was released by Kurdish media together with a series of photographs from another hospital in al-Hasakah, also close to Ras al-Ayn, showing boys with deep burns to their faces. Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria have accused accused Turkey using as napalm and white phosphorus munitions, a charge Ankara has denied.
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There
were similar scenes in other hospitals as reports of chemical weapons use grows (Picture: MetroGrab)
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The boy was said to have to wait 12 hours before being treated by doctors
ozens of civilians have been killed and more than 300,000 people forced to flee their homes since fighting began this month. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group with a wide network of sources on the ground, could not confirm if Turkey had begun a campaign of chemical warfare but the group’s chief Rami Abdel Rahman said there had been a spike in burn wounds over the past two days, mostly casualties brought in from the Ras al-Ain area. Chemical weapons were made notorious by their widespread use by US forces during the Vietnam War. Napalm and related chemicals are mixtures of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical used in incendiary bombs. White phosphorus is often used to create smokescreens or battlefield markers, but can also be deployed as a deadly incendiary weapon which is prohibited under international law.
Chemical warfare is becoming increasingly normalised said the former commander of the UK’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiment (Picture: Metrograb)
A spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the autonomous Kurdish region’s de facto army, called on international organisations to send in experts. ‘We urge international organisations to send their teams to investigate some wounds sustained in attacks,’ Mustefa Bali said on social media.
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