A wounded man is carried to a hospital in Aleppo, Syria, Nov. 24, 2018. At least 44 civilians suffered suffocation as a result of a rebel attack with "poisonous gas" in Syria's northern city of Aleppo on Saturday, state TV reported. (Xinhua/Stringer)
DAMASCUS, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Sunday demanded the UN Security Council condemnation of the rebels' chemical attack in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, state news agency SANA reported.
The ministry made the demand in a statement to the UN Security Council in the wake of the attack on Saturday, in which rebels fired dozens of projectiles with chlorine gas in the al-Khalidiyeh and Zahraa neighborhoods as well as the Nile Street in the western part of Aleppo.
It also demanded the UN Security Council take deterring and punitive measures against the countries supporting the rebels in Syria.
The attack, the first of its kind in Aleppo since the city was liberated in late 2016, caused suffocation of 107 people.
Most of the victims were women and children, some of whom suffered extreme poisoning as a result of the exposure to the chlorine gas, the ministry said in the statement.
Meanwhile, the statement targeted the so-called White Helmets, saying it is a Western-backed organization that ostensibly does humanitarian work in rebel-held areas but repeatedly stages attacks to frame the government.
The shells fired on Saturday were from the village of Braikat in the countryside of Aleppo, where the White Helmets has a presence, the ministry said.
The ministry statement was also forwarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In 2013, the OPCW officials arrived in Syria to monitor the dismantlement of the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal, after Damascus officially joined the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Convention.
