Chemical weapons inspectors collected samples from the Syrian town of Douma on Saturday, two weeks after a suspected poison gas attack there that was followed by Western retaliatory strikes on the Syrian regime's chemical facilities.
The collection, confirmed by the Organisation of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, will allow the agency to proceed with an independent investigation to determine whether chemicals were used in the April 7 attack that medical workers said killed more than 40 people, and, if so, which chemicals.
Douma was the final target of the government's sweeping campaign to seize back control of the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus from rebels after seven years of revolt. Militants gave up the town shortly after the alleged attack.
The U.S., France and Britain blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad's government for the attack and targeted suspected Syrian chemical weapons facilities one week later.
The Syrian government and ally Russia denied responsibility for the attack.
OPCW inspectors arrived in Damascus hours before the April 15 strikes, but were kept from visiting the site until Saturday, leading Western officials and Syrian activists to accuse Russia and the Syrian government of staging a cover-up.
Bilal Abou Salah, a Douma media activist who left the town after the government takeover, said, "I won't find any hope in my heart until the Assad regime is held accountable and eradicated from government in Syria."
He said he feared Russian and Syrian government personnel destroyed potential evidence in the two weeks since the reported attack.
The OPCW said in a statement that it visited "one of the sites" in Douma to collect samples for analysis at agency-designated laboratories, adding it would "consider future steps including another possible visit to Douma."
It said the mission was planning to draft a report based on the findings, "as well other information and materials collected by the team."
In a statement, the OPCW said it would now evaluate and consider whether the team needs to make a second visit to Douma.
Samples will be transported back to the Netherlands and onward to the organization's network of labs for analysis.
Based on the analysis of the sample results as well other information and materials collected by the team, the mission would compile a report and submit it to the organization's member states, the statement said.
The OPCW mission is not mandated to apportion blame for the attack.
A U.N. security team had scouted Douma on Tuesday to see whether it was safe for weapons inspectors to visit. The team came under small arms and explosives fire, leading the agency to delay its mission.
Journalists visiting Douma the previous day, accompanied by government escorts, experienced no security issues.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the delays to the OPCW team were "unacceptable" in a statement Saturday.
Douma is just minutes away from Damascus, where the OPCW team is based.
Images emerging from Douma in the hours after the attack showed lifeless bodies collapsed in crowded rooms, some with foam around their noses and mouths.
Abou Salah entered one of the buildings affected by the alleged gas attack the following day and took footage of a yellow cylinder with a gas valve on the top floor. He said it had crashed through the roof and showed a gash in the ceiling where he said it had come through.
His assertions could not be independently verified, but the cylinder looked like others identified by the international NGO Human Rights Watch at other locations of chlorine gas attacks attributed to the government in 2016.
Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian Civil Defense search and rescue group also known as the White Helmets, said Wednesday that his organization had shared the coordinates of the burial sites of the April 7 victims with the OPCW so that inspectors could take biological samples.
Civil Defense workers evacuated Douma after the attack, fearing persecution by the government's security services. The government says the group is a terrorist organization. The group, which operates in opposition areas only, maintains a strong position against Assad.
Thousands of people – rebels and civilians – left Douma on buses to northern Syria in the days after the attack, believing they could not live under government authority after it retook the town. North Syria is divided between opposition, Turkish, and al-Qaida control.
The evacuations were the latest in a string of population transfers around the Syrian capital that have displaced more than 60,000 people as the government reassumes control after seven years of war.
U.N. officials and human rights groups say the evacuations amount to a forced population displacement that may constitute a war crime.
On Saturday, rebels began evacuating three towns in the eastern Qalamoun region in the Damascus countryside, state TV reported.
State-run Al-Ikhbariya TV said 35 buses left the towns of Ruhaiba, Jayroud, and al-Nasriya carrying hundreds of rebels and their families to opposition territory in northern Syria.
The station said there could be 3,200 rebels leaving three towns on Saturday. It said the evacuations would continue for three days.
Syrian government forces will take over the towns once the departures are complete.
