Leila Molana-Allen:
In August 2013, regime forces launched rockets containing the chemical agent sarin on two rebel-held neighborhoods in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta. It was the deadliest chemical weapons attack since the Iran-Iraq War.
Barack Obama had warned the regime that using chemical weapons against civilians would force America’s hand. U.N. inspectors who searched the site confirmed significant quantities of the gas has been used in an indiscriminate attack. In spite of international outrage, nothing was done to stop it happening again.
With her six siblings dead, only Maha and her mother are left. Suffering the long-term effects of sarin without access to treatment, Maha’s mother is blind and unable to walk. Maha struggles to see well and has lost her sense of smell.
