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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
World
Al Jazeera and news agencies

NGO: 214 chemical attacks by Syrian govt since 2011

A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask, after a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, Syria, April 4, 2017. [Ammar Abdullah/Reuters]

Syrian government forces carried out 214 chemical attacks since 2011, according to a Syrian watchdog.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said these attacks have claimed the lives of at least 1,421 people. 

A total of 187 children and 244 women were among the victims, the NGO said.

Report 

The report was released on the first anniversary of a chemical attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the northwestern Idlib province last year, in which over 100 people were killed and hundreds injured.

A fact-finding mission by the UN's chemical watchdog, the OPCW, following the attack had concluded that sarin or a sarin-like substance was used as a chemical weapon in the April 4 attack in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun.

At least 87 people, including many children, were killed in the attack that the United States, France and Britain have said was carried out by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

According to the NGO, the Syrian regime has carried out 11 chemical attacks since the Khan Sheikhoun attack.

Last year, a UN investigation panel has concluded that Syrian army forces were responsible for the sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since March 2011.

UN officials say hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict.

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