Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
May 27, 2014, Sky News
Eleven members of a chemical weapons watchdog team thought to have been kidnapped are now safe and well.
The team consisting of five Syrian drivers and six members of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were travelling to a site of an alleged chlorine gas attack in Syria when they came under attack.
However, the OPCW later said all team members are safe and well and were heading back to their operating base.
OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Ahmet Uzumcu, expressed his personal concern for the OPCW and UN staff members and repeated his call to all parties for co-operation with the mission.
“Our inspectors are in Syria to establish the facts in relation to persistent allegations of chlorine gas attacks,” he said.
“Their safety is our primary concern, and it is imperative that all parties to the conflict grant them safe and secure access.”
An earlier report from the Syrian foreign ministry suggested the 11 individuals had been abducted by rebels fighting President Bashar al Assad’s government for the kidnapping, accusing them of “terrorist crimes”.
The OPCW team is investigating claims that Syrian government forces last month used the industrial chemical chlorine on a rebel-held village in Hama last month.
