Syria gas attack kills 58 people including 11 children; hundreds wounded

Syrian doctors treating children following the suspected chemical attack, at a makeshift hospital, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun. Pics/AFP

Beirut: A suspected gas attack, believed to be by Syrian government jets, killed at least 58 people including 11 children under the age of eight in the northwestern province of Idlib on Tuesday, a war monitor and medical workers in the rebel-held area said.

A Syrian man carrying a victim on his back.

A Syrian military source strongly denied the army had used any such weapons. The attack caused many people to choke or faint, and some had foam coming out of their mouths, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, citing medical sources who described it as a sign of a gas attack.

The air strikes on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, in the south of rebel-held Idlib, also wounded more than 60 people, said the Observatory. "This morning, at 6:30 am, warplanes targeted Khan Sheikhoun with gases, believed to be sarin and chlorine," said Mounzer Khalil, head of Idlib's health authority, adding that the attack had killed more than 100 people and wounded 400.

An unconscious Syrian child is carried at a hospital.

"Most of the hospitals in Idlib province are now overflowing with wounded people," he said. Warplanes later struck near a medical point where victims of the attack were being treated, the Observatory said and civil defence workers said.