Masa, seven, is pictured with her mother, Amani, after surviving the Douma gas attack
A seven-year-old girl has spoken of how she cowered in a basement and ‘breathed the smell of blood’ in the wake of a chemical attack by the Syrian government.
Footage of Masa – who was shown crying alongside other children being treated by medics – shocked the world when it was broadcast following the April 7 atrocity in Douma.
Now she has spoken of the horrifying experience of being gassed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Speaking to the BBC, she said: ‘We were in Douma in the basement under shelling. Suddenly they dropped a barrel. It did not explode. But it made [a sound like] ‘feesshh’.
She was then told to ‘go up’ the building but when she reached last floor, she collapsed, adding: ‘I could not stop it”.
‘My mum said to my uncle: ‘My daughter, my daughter, my daughter’,’ she said.
‘My uncle came and took me up. He brought a wet cloth and carried me upstairs.
‘Three doctors came. One carried me and the other carried my sister and ran.
‘They took us to the first medical point on the ground and poured water on us. Then they took us in, sprayed us and gave us an injection.
‘When we went to sleep, the planes shelled and we were covered in dust.
Masa said: ‘We went back down to the basement and saw how they were bringing the martyrs. Instead of breathing the air we breathed the smell of blood’
Footage of Masa – who was shown crying alongside other children being treated by medics – shocked the world when it was broadcast following the April 7 atrocity in Douma
‘We went back down to the basement and saw how they were bringing the martyrs. Instead of breathing the air we breathed the smell of blood.’
At least 75 people are believed to have been killed in the attack and thousands of survivors have fled to refugee camps in northern Syria.
Masa and her twin sister Malaz were hiding in a basement with their family and dozens of their neighbours when the attack began.
The group had taken cover after barrel bombs began falling.
The girls’ mother Amani, 34, told the Sunday Times that she heard men shouting ‘Gas! Gas!’
She then saw a white cloud and dust pouring down into the basement and grabbed one of the twins, Masa, while her brother-in-law took Malaz as her husband was too weak.
She said: ‘The gas was spicy. Spicy in my throat like chilli. I was vomiting and coughing. No-one could breathe. Around me people were just falling to the ground.’
She tried pouring water over Masa’s face in an attempt to wash off the poison, but said foam began forming in the corners of the child’s mouth.
Masa’s mother, Amani, said: ‘The gas was spicy. Spicy in my throat like chilli. I was vomiting and coughing. No-one could breathe. Around me people were just falling to the ground’
Masa and her twin Malaz were hiding in a basement with their family and dozens of their neighbours when the attack began
Masa said: ‘They took us to the first medical point on the ground and poured water on us. Then they took us in, sprayed us and gave us an injection’
The mother said: ‘My whole body didn’t work. When I was climbing the stairs I could feel myself losing strength.
‘I couldn’t control my body. I was just shaking the whole time. There wasn’t oxygen.’
Amani collapsed and said when she came round there were more barrel bombs falling. She could not find her husband Diaa or her other daughter.
They had collapsed on the building’s second floor after inhaling the gas – but were conscious and the family made it outside to the street. Still choking, the family staggered to a clinic but found it overwhelmed with victims.
Another survivor, Ibrahim, said a doctor was crying because she had 40 patients who needed medicine, but only enough supplies to treat three.
The twins were barely breathing but were given injections – while their mother was rushed back to hospital days later, suffering from the after-effects of exposure.
She said: ‘We were still getting sick from the bags and clothes we had in the basement. We didn’t know.’ Days later, the purple T-shirt Masa wore that night still carried the smell of chlorine.
At least 75 people are believed to have been killed in the attack on and thousands of survivors have fled to refugee camps in northern Syria. Pictured: A child receiving oxygen through respirators following the Douma attack
A child evacuated from Douma receives preventive medicine upon arrival in Al-Bab district, Aleppo
A young child is treated by specialists after being taken to Aleppo in the wake of the gas attack on Douma
An image released by the White Helmets shows a toddler in a nappy being given oxygen after the attack in Syria
Amani said three people had died in the basement where her family had sheltered, but that dozens were killed in the cellar next door because they had not heard the gas until it was too late, and were unable to get out.
She added: ‘They were innocent people. They were our friends. They became numbers, but they are not. They are civilians and families.’
Ibrahim Reyhani, a White Helmet civil defence volunteer, said anyone who touched the bodies started getting sick, and said he believed a mixture of sarin and chlorine had been used.
He told the Sunday Times: ‘If it’s just chlorine, if you smell it you can escape. But sarin you breathe and it kills you.’
He added: ‘There were many who died on the stairs.
‘If it was chlorine, they could have escaped. But they died after just taking a few steps.’
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer and chemical weapons expert, said: ‘What they’re describing is chlorine and what we suspect is a nerve agent mixed with chlorine.’