Anadolu Agency films aftermath of Idlib chemical attack

By Levent Tok, Selen Temizer and Adham Kako

KHAN SHAYKHUN, Syria

Anadolu Agency photographers have captured footage of a hospital and civil defense center destroyed shortly after Tuesday’s deadly chemical attack in the town of Khan Shaykhun in Syria’s Idlib province.

Both buildings were completely destroyed and rendered inoperable.

The ill-fated hospital and civil defense center were targeted only hours after the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, which left at least 100 people dead and hundreds more adversely affected.

The two buildings, located roughly 5 kilometers from the site of the attack in Khan Shaykhun, were both built inside a rocky hillside with a view to protecting them from regime airstrikes.

Footage shot by Anadolu Agency photographers shows the area strewn with wreckage and rocket shrapnel.

"This is where victims of the chemical attack were taken, but the Assad regime attacked it as well,” hospital worker Hazem Sahwan told Anadolu Agency.

“The hospital is completely inoperable now," he added.

Anadolu Agency’s team on the ground soon had to vacate the area, however, after warplanes could be seen approaching overhead.

Early Tuesday, the town of Khan Shaykhun in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province was subject to a chemical attack that left at least 100 people dead and hundreds more adversely affected.

The Syrian regime, for its part, has denied allegations that it targeted the area with chemical weapons.

Tuesday’s attack came one day after Syrian regime aircraft reportedly carried out a similar attack in Idlib’s town of Al-Habit in which dozens were affected.

Last year, a UN-appointed investigation panel found that chemical weapons were mainly used by regime forces in 2014 and 2015.

No punitive measures were taken, however.