Ghouta survivors still wait for justice as Syria confronts chemical weapons legacy

In the early hours of 21 August, 2013, surface-to-surface rockets carrying the nerve agent sarin struck populated areas of Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyat al-Sham, west of Damascus.

The attacks killed at least 1,144 people by suffocation, including 1,119 civilians, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). The group said nearly 6,000 others were injured, many suffering respiratory distress. The United Nations mission that investigated the attack confirmed the large-scale use of sarin, but was not mandated to determine who had launched it.

Now, after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, survivors and families of those killed are marking the anniversary in a changed political landscape. Former regime figures are no longer in power, investigators have broader access to suspected chemical-weapons sites, and Syria’s transitional authorities have publicly prioritised cooperation with international inspectors.

For Fadel Abdulghany, SNHR’s founder and director, the principal shift is access to evidence,  before accountability itself.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) reported in May that inspectors had found undeclared chemical munitions, substances, equipment and thousands of pages of documentation at previously undisclosed sites. The materials included rockets of the same type used in the Ghouta attack, according to reporting on the inspectors’ findings.

"If properly authenticated, contextualised and corroborated," Abdulghany told The New Arab, the material could help strengthen future criminal cases. But he cautioned that the discovery of similar rockets does not prove that the weapons found were used in Ghouta in 2013, nor does it identify those responsible for the attack.

Evidence and accountability

The documents and physical material could be significant if they clarify the operational machinery of the former regime’s chemical-weapons programme, Abdulghany said. That could include records relating to production and storage, procurement, munition design, deployment, unit allocations, targeting, communications or later efforts to conceal evidence.

On Friday, Syrian state media said authorities had announced the discovery of additional "materials, munitions and equipment linked to chemical weapons activities, including 25 surface-to-surface rockets similar to those used in the Ghouta chemical attack, along with materials related to sarin production and equipment used for mixing and storage".

However, Abdulghany stressed that preservation will be as important as discovery.

Sites should be secured and items photographed and documented before removal, with geolocation data, dates, serial numbers, markings and each transfer of custody recorded, he said. Digital records should be forensically copied in ways that retain metadata and allow their integrity to be verified.

The process is particularly sensitive because any chemical substances or munitions that remain must be safely handled and ultimately destroyed. But Abdulghany said destruction or neutralisation should be coordinated with the need to preserve evidence for future cases.

The OPCW has a technical mandate to verify Syria’s chemical weapons declaration and investigate chemical weapons use. In a statement issued on Friday, to mark the anniversary, OPCW Director-General Sabrina Dallafior said the organisation "continues to work closely with the new Syrian government to uncover the full extent of the former Syrian authorities’ chemical weapons programme".

"We must ensure that chemical weapons can never again be used to cause harm to our communities. It is our collective duty to protect future generations from these abhorrent weapons," Dallafior’s statement read.

The OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team can attribute responsibility for particular attacks under a non-judicial standard, but it is not a criminal court or prosecutor. The UN’s International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), meanwhile, prepares evidence and case files to support national or international proceedings but cannot itself put suspects on trial.

Jurisdiction remains a major hurdle. Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute, which means the International Criminal Court would need either a UN Security Council referral or a declaration by Syria accepting the court’s jurisdiction. In the absence of either, cases will largely depend on Syrian courts meeting international fair-trial standards, universal-jurisdiction proceedings abroad and cooperation with bodies such as the IIIM.

Can Syria’s courts deliver?

Bassam al-Ahmad, co-founder and executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), said the removal of Assad-era authorities had opened space for investigations. Victims and crime scenes were now more accessible, he told The New Arab, while the new authorities had placed particular emphasis on the chemical weapons file.

But he said the opportunity could be squandered unless recovered material was protected.

"We hope these records and documents about the chemical weapons, and who committed these violations, are kept safe," al-Ahmad said, pointing to the loss of other facilities and detention centres that were burned or destroyed under the former regime.

Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice, established in May 2025, is mandated to investigate grave violations committed under Assad. Al-Ahmad said chemical attacks clearly fell within that mandate, but the unresolved issue was how it would translate into court proceedings.

"We need a judicial reform before processing these types of crimes," he said, referring to what STJ sees as serious gaps in the transitional justice system.

Those concerns have been sharpened by the early trials of former regime figures. In April, Atef Najib – Assad’s cousin and a former political security chief in Daraa – became the first prominent former official to face trial in Damascus over the repression of anti-government protests in 2011. He was later sentenced to death alongside the former president, Maher al-Assad and other former officials, in a case involving charges including murder, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity.

The proceedings were greeted by many Syrians as an important break with decades of impunity. Yet rights advocates have also questioned whether the courts have the independence, procedural safeguards and institutional capacity needed for complex international-crimes cases.

For Ghouta, the challenge is especially felt. Establishing that a chemical attack occurred is not the same as proving individual criminal responsibility. Prosecutors would need evidence showing that particular officials ordered, planned, enabled or otherwise contributed to the attack – or that commanders with effective authority over perpetrators knew, or should have known, of the crimes and failed to prevent or punish them.

That means investigators would need to go beyond the attack site and find records such as organisational charts, appointment papers, operational and flight logs, missile-unit material, orders, communications, procurement files and credible insider testimony, Abdulghany said. Many of those records may have been destroyed, altered or dispersed, while witnesses could still face threats and senior suspects may be outside Syria or protected by powerful networks.

SANA reported on Syrian authorities’ announcement of having arrested several former officers and specialists, "including individuals accused of holding roles related to chemical weapons storage, development and operations", saying the arrests "represent part of efforts to bring those responsible for chemical weapons violations before justice through legal procedures".

But survivors’ demands cannot be reduced to prosecutions alone, rights groups say, stressing the need for justice beyond formal verdicts.

Abdulghany said victims and families need a credible public account of what happened, how the chemical-weapons programme operated and which institutions enabled the attack. They also need long-term medical and psychosocial care, compensation, livelihood and education support, and recognition of the particular needs of people living with permanent disabilities.

Such assistance should not be conditional on the completion of criminal trials, which can take years, he said. Nor should access depend on political affiliation, displacement, current residence or formal paperwork that survivors may no longer possess.