UN probing reports of chlorine use in Syria

GENEVA

UN war crimes experts said on Tuesday they were investigating multiple reports that bombs allegedly containing banned chlorine have been used against civilians in the Syrian towns of Saraqeb in Idlib and Douma in eastern Ghouta.

Sieges in the rebel-held Damascus enclave of eastern Ghouta “involve the international crimes of indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate starvation of the civilian population”, Paulo Pinheiro, head of the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said in a statement issued in Geneva.

Reports of air strikes hitting at least three hospitals in the past 48 hours “make a mockery of so-called ‘de-escalation zones”, he said.