

The Boston Globe


Poison gas is blamed for Syrian deaths

BEIRUT — Scores of men, women, and children were killed outside of Damascus on Wednesday in an attack marked by the telltale signs of chemical weapons: row after row of corpses without visible injury; hospitals flooded with victims, gasping for breath, trembling, and staring ahead languidly; images of a gray cloud bursting over a neighborhood.

But even with videos, witness accounts, and testimonies by emergency medics, it was impossible to know for certain how many people had been killed and what exactly had killed them. The rebels blamed the government, the government denied involvement, and Russia accused the rebels of staging the attack to implicate President Bashar Assad’s government.

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