Reporters from the One America News Network have visited the Syrian town of Duma, located in Damascus’ suburbs, where, according to the U.S. and its allies, a chemical attack took place on April 7, and found no evidence that could prove these claims.
The situation around Syria escalated in recent months as several media outlets, citing Syrian militants, accused Damascus of using chemical weapons in Duma.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry rejected the allegations, adding that the use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb may have been planned by terrorist groups.
“We got to speak to the residents in the area. We’ve been even able to visit the hospital, where the White Helmets showed video of people being hosed down.
“We were brought to one of the neighborhoods close to where the attack allegedly happened. I spoke to a number of residents there, probably around 10 residents and this is about block and half away from where the attack supposedly happened.
“Not one of the people that I spoke to in that neighbourhood said that they had seen or heard anything about the chemical attack on that day.
“They said that they were going about the normal business,” Pearson Sharp, a One America News Network reporter, said.
The reporters then went to other areas in Duma in order to speak to more people and managed to interview about 30 to 40 random civilians about the alleged chemical attack.
“Consistently, not one person in the entire town that we talked to said that they had seen or heard anything about a chemical attack.
“They said that they’ve lived there from seven to 15 years, some of them, so they are long-time residents of the area, many of them were very close to the site that was the allegedly attacked on that day,” Sharp underlined.
Asked about what the “chemical attack was,” all of the Duma residents who were surveyed replied that it was staged by the rebels who had occupied the town at that time.
These same people called the incident “a fabrication and hoax” staged by the rebels in order to distract the Syrian army so that they could escape from the town, according to the broadcaster.
The U. S., the UK, and France hit a number of targets in Syria early on Saturday in response to the alleged chemical attack in Duma.
The move has already been criticised by a number of countries, including Russia, Iran, Belarus, and Cuba among others.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday that the strikes came just as Syria had got a chance to achieve peace.(Sputnik/NAN)
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