![]() ![]() He sits on the floor and plays Lego with his 11-month-old daughter, whom he named Aya, after his first daughter. He stroked their hair and choked back tears, mumbling, “Say goodbye, baby, say goodbye.”Īl-Yousef keeps photos and videos of the attack’s aftermath on his phone that he flips through from time to time. In footage filmed by his cousin that was widely circulated later, al-Yousef, 29 years old at the time, is seen seated in the front seat of a van cradling his twins, holding them in each arm. They were among the 89 people who died from what experts have determined was an attack using sarin, an outlawed nerve toxin. He lost consciousness and woke up four hours later to be told that his twins and wife had died. He recalls how he ran to his brother’s house to find him and his family dead. The people he saw foaming at the mouth and nose. How he told his wife to take the twins to safety outside. How people started running out of their homes and onto the street, trying to help each other. It is a story he has told dozens of times, about how Khan Sheikhoun residents woke up at half-past six in the morning to the sound of explosions. ![]() The Syrian government and its Russian allies denied there was a chemical attack, while Syrian officials later said the air force bombed a rebel arsenal that had chemical weapons stored inside.įrom his tent in the displaced settlement near the Turkish border called “Mokhayyam al-Karamah,” Arabic for “Dignity Camp,” near the town of Atmeh, al-Yousef recalls that fateful day when he lost his twins, Aya and Ahmed, his wife Dalal and 16 other relatives. It marked the first western airstrikes on targets of Assad’s government since the start of the conflict in March 2011. Tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat Air Base in central Syria, saying the attack on Khan Sheikhoun was launched from the base. At the time, the United States, Britain and France pointed a finger at the Syrian government, saying their experts had found that nerve agents were used in the attack.
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