The civil war is technically over, and the regime that ruled Syria with brutality for more than a decade is gone. But for survivors of chemical attacks conducted by forces loyal to ousted President Bashar al-Assad, the trauma is still very real. And so is the fight for justice.
Just outside Damascus, in a neighborhood of destroyed buildings covered in endless dust, Reem al Dere walked down a narrow street. She arrived at a place where everything changed for her — on April 7, 2018.
That night, families had taken shelter in the basement of an apartment block in Douma. The city had been under siege for five years, and constant bombardments had pushed many residents underground, where they lived for days at a time.
“A curtain separated the men and women,” Dere recalled.
It was crowded. Around 7 p.m. that day, they heard the sound of explosions. But this time, it was different. A powerful smell also filled the air: chlorine gas.
As panic set in, some of Dere’s neighbors ran upstairs, thinking the air would be clear there, but she said those were the ones who died.
Others, including Dere, fled through a tunnel system built under the city, leading to a medical point nearby.
Out of the dozens who had taken shelter in that building, only two survived. Dere was one of them.
She remembered her best friend and neighbor, Sara, who was seven months pregnant at the time. She had cravings for green almonds and Sara’s husband would find a handful of them with great difficulty.
And each time, Sara would save a few of them for her best friend.
“She was unrecognizable after the attack,” Dere remembered, “Her face had swollen. Her clothes had changed color from the exposure to chlorine.”
As Dere recounted that horrific night, one of her neighbors stopped by.
Tawfik Diab, also known as Abu Ali, a middle-aged man with a mournful look in his eyes.
He invited us into his home. The guest room was furnished with mother-of-pearl covered Syrian furniture.
Diab lost everything that night: his wife, four children and his brother, along with his brother’s five children. He had been working at his tire shop when the attack happened.
“The gas cylinder fell from the sky,” he said, pointing to the ceiling. “It left a hole.”
For months, Diab refused to believe his children were gone. He would go to their school and wait.
“Their teacher would come out and tell me: ‘They’re all gone. Go home.’”
On his phone, he still has videos of his children playing and laughing. “They should be alive today,” he said.
In 2023, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that, on April 7, 2018, at least one Syrian government helicopter dropped two yellow cylinders filled with chemicals that hit two residential buildings in a central area of Douma.
But survivors say that confirmation has brought them little relief.
There has been no compensation. No real accountability.
Diab said the Syrian government even forced him to lie about what happened.
Ten days after the attack, he recounted, security forces took him away to a military branch. They set up a mock TV interview and forced him to deny that there was any chemical attack, and to say that the children were killed by the opposition.
Russian soldiers watched from the side, he said, and Diab was too afraid to resist, so he went along with the interview.
Since then, Diab has tried to rebuild his life. He has reconstructed his house, painted the walls and fixed the broken windows.
But he has kept one thing unchanged: a full-length mirror that his son, Ali, accidentally cracked. “I couldn’t bring myself to remove it,” he said.
Reem al Dere, listening nearby, said that the community hasn’t received any financial or psychological support. Survivors like herself and Diab are hoping that Syria’s new leaders will listen to their needs.
Diab, a deeply religious man, said he believes true justice will only come on Judgment Day.
But for Dere, help couldn’t come sooner.
“We need people who specialize in trauma,” she said. “We don’t know if healing is possible, but we need help.”