As my colleagues Michael Gordon, Alan Cowell and Rick Gladstone report, United Nations weapons inspectors visited two hospitals in the Syrian countryside outside of Damascus on Monday to interview survivors of last week’s suspected chemical weapons attack and collect patient samples, despite a volley of sniper fire that disabled the lead vehicle in their convoy.
Antigovernment activists in the Damascus suburb of Moadamiya, southwest of the capital, posted video to YouTube that showed United Nations inspectors in blue helmets and body armor arriving at a cramped rebel clinic, where they interviewed witnesses and survivors of the attack.
A series of videos of the inspectors was posted to YouTube by an account affiliated with antigovernment activists in the town, which was the location of the smaller of two suspected chemical weapons attacks last week. The other location lies to the northeast of Damascus, near the towns of Erbeen, Ein Terma and Zamalka. Activists in those towns posted dozens of graphic videos online in the wake of the attack showing scores of dead bodies, including a large number of children.
Antigovernment activists in Moadamiya appeared to have documented almost every stage of the inspectors’ visit, from their arrival in the town to their departure a little before 5 p.m. local time. One of the first videos posted on Monday showed a small group of fighters from the Free Syrian Army waiting on the side of the road for the United Nations delegation to arrive. A man in civilian clothing stood with them and spoke directly into the camera, saying that he believed the sniper fire that hit the United Nations convoy earlier in the day came from a nearby air force intelligence facility.
When the inspectors arrived in the town, video posted by the same activists showed a young man in green medical scrubs and a surgical mask leading them into an improvised hospital that he described as a “basement.†In the video, the young man in scrubs can be heard telling inspectors that the medical facility is kept underground because they have no way to keep it safe “in a higher place.†The makeshift room is dim and crowded with doctors and patients.
Some of the most jarring images from last week’s suspected chemical attacks showed rooms full of dead bodies, including dozens of children. The video uploaded from Moadamiya, in contrast, showed a clinic that appeared to only treat adults. Two separate videos posted to YouTube showed a United Nations inspector interviewing the same man, who said he believed what he had experienced was a “chemical, chemical†attack.
Another video posted online by activists in Moadamiya showed a member of the inspection team photographing and measuring a long metal tube lying on the floor of an outdoor courtyard, which the cameraman described as “a chemical rocket†involved in the suspected attack. There is no indication from the video that the cameraman’s assessment is accurate, nor can we tell what the inspector himself thought of the metal tube lying before him.
Activists kept their cameras rolling even after the inspectors finished their work and prepared to leave the town. One video showed members of the United Nations team packing up a truck, as a young man who awaited their arrival offered a summary of their time in the town. He complained that delegation had run out of time, and was only able to visit two of the seven sites that townspeople had wanted to show them.
A second video showed the United Nations convoy leaving Moadamiya at shortly before 5 p.m. local time, speeding through the town’s empty streets and passing buildings devastated by airstrikes and shelling, en route back to Damascus.
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