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Ghouta... The Planned Attack
Here is Zamalka, in Damascus' Eastern Ghouta. Photos were taken two months after the Chemical Weapon Attack on the 21st August 2013
More than 1,400 victims have been killed in that attack according to Human Rights Organizations. Zamalka looked like a Ghost City while we were making this documentary.
But as usual, in massacres, there are always some survivors that will tell us the story.
People in Eastern Ghouta have not realized that there is a chemical catastrophe till 02:30 in the morning.
Medical centers did not start working till around 02:40am.
The rescue process was a kind of random.
"My youngest brother came into the house and told me: They started a chemical weapons attack on us, you should leave the house"
"I looked at the birds, we had birds, and they were alive, not yet dead"
"So I said: that's a lie. He swore to me that they have just started rescuing the people, and people are dying out there, they attacked us with chemical weapons!"
"I woke up my wife and the children, we were still fine at that time, and I was completely fine"
"While we were still here, we saw three or four rockets falling in front of our eyes, as far as I remember; the sound of them was horrifying"
"But when it reached the ground nothing really happened, as if they were emptied of air"
Activists: Strange sounds issued by the rockets 21-August-2013
"Here sat Sundos, Mohammad; Mohammad was in front of me, and Massarrah was there. My uncle Ahmad hugged them and he thought they slept on his lap. He thought they were asleep"
"He put them next to my mom. But my mom then fell"
"My two daughters-in-law and their four children," "My two children, they all died."
I wish God will burn his heart (Assad) as he did to my heart by losing them"
"And they all died in front of this child"
"We were trying to put something like a mask on our face, my mom was putting us some. Towel mask"
"She was using the towels to put on our faces, and when my uncles left the house, she fell"
"After some time, my sister fell over mom too. My brother Mohammad started crying, crying, crying, and Massarrah too"
"I could no more hold them, so my uncle held them" "My aunt started to screaming at Qasem: You are dead too!!"
"She was holding him and crying"
"Most of the victims were children. Lots of families, the whole family." "They were all asleep at home. So the whole family has died"
"My uncle Ibrahim" "Ibrahim is your uncle?" "Yes" "And this is your brother?" "Yes"
"What people have seen of martyrs in the rest of the cities and towns inside Eastern Ghouta, were only what could be rescued"
"Here, not only one rocket has fallen. Rockets...” "But this is one of them"
"In this whole area, where the rocket has fallen, the people in all these houses have died. No one is left"
"Number of martyrs in this area alone is more than 500 martyrs"
"This place was a corral, around 75 animals were raised here, chicken, ducks. They all died. It's nothing compared to the value of died human beings that we lost, but they all died"
Athan Sound (Call for Prayer)
Many of the residents of these homes were killed behind the locked doors, here in Zamalka. Not many were found till after days of the attack.
Some of these houses have lost all their residents, and now there are no heirs even. Maybe they will stay locked for a long long period of time.