The Hague (AFP) - Chilling accounts of villagers fleeing a seeping yellow gas that withered everything in its path have emerged from testimony gathered by investigators probing chlorine attacks in Syria.
The detailed narrative of the attacks by gas-filled barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, as recently as two weeks ago, comes from a report by a fact-finding team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), obtained by AFP.
"In courtyards, domesticated birds and animals died, and leaves on plants facing the point of impact withered and wilted 'as autumn leaves,'" said the report, dated Wednesday, which confirmed the systematic use of chlorine as a weapon in war-torn Syria.
The team interviewed 37 victims, medical staff and witnesses of the April attacks in northern Syria. These bombings were different from the high-explosive blasts the villagers were used to.
"When dropped, a piercing heavy, whistling sound -- some comparing it to that of a fighter jet in a dive -- would be heard before the barrel hit the ground," making a noise "more akin to high-impact crashes rather than to loud explosions", the report said.
"A dense, honey wax-to-yellow" gas then rose from where the bombs landed, survivors said.
"The cloud would rise to a height of approximately 60 to 70 metres (around 210 feet) and then settle, moving along the ground in the direction of the wind."
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