Damascus suburbs still haunted by the Assad regime’s chemical attacks

Residents of Jubar, a Ghouta suburb on the eastern edge of Damascusthey were among the first to rise up against him Assad regime like that The Arab Spring swept the region more than a decade ago.

Jubar was bombed, besieged and starved by regime forces for five long years, until rebel troops withdrew from Ghouta.

But for the civilian population, the nightmare continued. Tens of thousands have been detained by Assad’s forces, with many disappearing without a trace.

“No one was spared,” says Ayham El Zaw, whose father disappeared after his arrest.

“There isn’t a house where I haven’t killed someone,” he says, standing amid the ruins of Jubar, now a ghost town that was home to a pre-war population of 250,000.

“Fathers, mothers, young people – they all died under torture,” adds El Zaw. “Many were killed by chemical weapons, many children.”

Across a bridge, the nearby suburb of Zamelka still bears the scars of one sarin gas attack which took place on August 21, 2013, in one of the darkest hours of the war.

“My family was gassed, they didn’t know what was happening,” says resident Samar Nakchabandi, pointing to where a missile carrying the deadly nerve agent landed near her home.

“Some climbed onto the roof, others tried to go down the stairs,” she says. “But they were all found dead.”

Nakchabandi lost six family members that day. They were among an estimated 1,400 people killed by the regime’s chemical attacks in the Ghouta area.

Click on the player above to watch Johan Bodin and Mohamed Farhat’s full report.