Talk:Alleged Chemical Attack, August 21, 2013/Rescue work

This page tries to answer the central question of the Chemical Massacre mystery: what happened to the victims and bodies before they arrived at the hospitals and other collection sites to to be photographed and cataloged. Who found the victims? How were they extracted from their homes? How did the victims get dressed? How were they transported to the hospitals? Was everyone found in the dark of night, with nothing to do for the daylight hours?

Unless evidence of this rescue work is provided, we can just as well assume that the victims were hostages who were gassed in cellars and dumped at the hospitals by their killers. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:57, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Talk Radio News Service

 * ‘Syria’s Srebrenica’ Claims Hundreds Of Lives And Cleans Out Hospital Supplies – TRNS, August 21, 2013
 * “People were screaming and asking for help. They had difficulty in breathing and seeing. There were many dead bodies on the ground. Some families were sleeping when the attack took place and all the family members died,” Al Aan TV reporter Mohammad Salah El Din told TRNS in an exclusive interview via Skype after visiting area hospitals. “I was shocked.”


 * Many of the victims were brought to area hospitals unconscious or dead, said Dr. Abo Akram, a director of medical field hospital in Erbeen, a Damascus suburb. Others gained consciousness after recovering from a “state of poisoning.”

Syrian Support Group

 * SSG’s Updated Report on the East Ghouta Chemical Attacks – Syrian Support Group, August 22, 2013
 * Initial injuries were around ten FSA fighters, in adition to about ten civilians first found outside. Immediately hundreds of citizens, struck while asleep in their homes, began arriving at hospitals.


 * Doctors and activist report that peoples windows were open during the night, allowing large concentrations of gas to pour into homes.


 * Many civilians were found simply unconscious in the street. Mohammad Salaheddine, a journalist/activist based in Zamalka hospital at the time the victims began to arrive, says "the dead were loaded int large pickup trucks by the hundreds, and were taken to three large mass graves in Zamalka, Ain Turma, Arbeen.THe bodies were place inside and dirt was bulldozed to bury them." Mohammad claims to have seen "eight trucks piled with around 400 bodies" being taken to these graves himself.

Casualties
Someone supposedly died "while he was rescuing people in Zamalka after the Aug. 21 chemical attack."
 * The Ground View: Eastern Ghouta, Now Free of Fear – Saeed al-Batal, September 06, 2013

Zamalka
In the video with evidently planted bodies at the Zamalka construction site the guide describes the rescue work: (at 4:28)
 * Are there still inhabited houses? --Yes, sure. Between yesterday and today we found more then 40 corpses and we are still searching.

Could it be, that more of the bodies were discovered in this half-abandoned neighborhood? If so, were that the regular residents? Who would want to live here? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 03:29, 9 September 2013 (UTC)