UN awaits full report on chemical attack in Syria

UN is awaiting a detailed report on a chemical weapons attack earlier this week in Syria that killed at least 70 people and injured more than 200 others, media reports said.

"We are still receiving information. Full details are still not known," Under Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Kim Won-soo said at the opening of a Security Council emergency meeting to discuss the incident.

A team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) "is actively gathering and analyzing the information", and it will be deployed to the area where the incident occurred as soon as possible, Efe news quoted Kim as saying.

Kim spoke at the opening of a session that is expected to lead to a Security Council resolution, although a vote is still pending.

The international community has strongly condemned the chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun, a town in the northern province of Idlib.

Kim said the UN was gathering information from "all sources available" and he had been in contact with OPCW members and Syrian representatives at the United Nations.

The chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun is the most serious in Syria since an August 21, 2013 attack in Guta, on the outskirts of Damascus.

--IANS

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