Syrian child, 3, dies after suffocating in Eastern Ghouta ‘chlorine attack’

A child died and at least 13 other people suffered breathing difficulties after a suspected chemical attack on a besieged Syrian rebel enclave Sunday, a medic and a monitor said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 civilians had suffered breathing difficulties after a regime warplane struck the village of Al-Shifuniyah in the Eastern Ghouta region.

One child died and a woman was in a critical condition, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory which relies on multiple sources on the ground in Syria for its reports.

Yaqub, a doctor who treated those affected, told AFP he suspected "chemical weapons, probably a chlorine gas attack".

He said a three-year-old had died of asphyxiation.

"Most of the patients have chlorine odour from their clothes and their skin. Many have dyspnea and skin and eye irritations," he said in English.

Ten-year-old Omar who was injured in an air strike, that killed several members of his family, on their home in Otaybah receives treatment at a make-shift hospital in Syria's rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta, on February 25, 2018. (AFP)

Rebels accused Damascus of using chlorine gas, but Moscow, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, accused his opponents of using "toxic substances" to make it appear that they had been deployed by regime forces.

Damascus, which has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons, has been accused of several chlorine gas attacks in recent weeks, including two in January in eastern Ghouta, a rebel stronghold on the edge of the capital which has been battered by regime strikes since mid-February.

Recent reports of regime chemical attacks have prompted France to warn of strikes in Syria, after similar remarks by an official in Washington.

A picture taken on February 24, 2018 in the Syrian rebel-held town of Douma, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, shows the shrouded and prepared-for-burial bodies of civilians who were killed during reported regime bombardment on the area. (AFP)

Regime ally Russia accused rebels of carrying out the attack.

They "prepare a provocation, using of toxic substances to accuse government forces of using chemical weapons against the civilian population," the defence ministry said.

The Observatory reported 21 cases of suffocation in Eastern Ghouta on 22 January. Residents and medical sources said they suspected a chlorine attack.

A similar attack targeted the outskirts of Douma on January 13, the monitor said.

A Syrian girl looks at another crying child sitting on a hospital bed in a make-shift clinic in the rebel-held town of Douma, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, after they arrived to receive medical attention following reported regime bombardment on the area on February 24, 2018. (AFP)

The Syrian regime has denied possessing chemical weapons.

The reports came a day after the United Nations demanded a ceasefire to end one of the most ferocious assaults of Syria’s civil war.

Regime forces have been engaged in a ferocious assault on Ghouta since February 18, killing more than 500 people.