“…On March 8, Islamic State militants fired more than 40 rockets carrying chemical warheads at this northern Iraqi town of mud-wall compounds and dusty date palms on, according to district head Hussein Adil, killing a young child and wounding over 800 civilians. After the attack, which may have been carried out with a mixture of chlorine and mustard gas, nearly half of the town’s 30,000 residents, mostly ethnic Turkmen Shiites, fled in terror…”
March 18th, 2017“…..Hussein said he was the first on the scene. “There was a smell like bad gas or rotten eggs and the girl’s skin was coated in an oily film,” said the 29-year-old teacher from his home in Taza, where he was recovering from the effects of the gas.
Hussein picked Fatimah up and rushed her to the nearby hospital. “I wanted to rescue her,” he said.
But her condition deteriorated, and she died in a hospital bed. Photos show her torso swaddled in bandages and her exposed skin blistered and discolored. Hussein later became sick himself and his throat and eyes burned. His skin blistered from where he had clutched the girl to his chest.
These signs and symptoms were consistent with mustard gas poisoning, according to Nanem Saboh Mohamed, a doctor at Taza hospital where many of those affected by Saturday’s attacks were treated…..”