At least 107 people were injured after rebel groups fighting the Syrian government released toxic gas in a residential area in Aleppo, the official Syrian Arab News Agency claimed on Sunday. Militants attacked with projectiles containing gases on Saturday, causing choking, the agency claimed.

“On November 24, armed terrorist groups attacked with toxic gases safe residential neighborhoods in Aleppo City as they targeted the neighborhoods of al-Khalidyia, al-Hamadanyia, al-Shahba, al-Neel Street and Jam’ayat al-Zahra in Aleppo city with tens of mortar shells filled with chlorine as 107 civilians suffered from suffocation and very dangerous cases of poisoning, mostly women, children and elderly, in addition to the damages inflicted on the public and private properties in the targeted areas,” Syria’s Foreign Ministry wrote to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Director General Fernando Arias González, and UN Security Council President Ma Zhaoxu.

The ministry alleged that “certain states” had enabled the militants to get access to chemical weapons, and blamed the Syrian government for it. The Foreign Ministry claimed that the shells were fired from areas where the White Helmets, a volunteer organisation, is very active. The government denounced the group as terrorists, and also called on the United Nations to take punitive measures against those countries which, it alleged, continue to support and fund terrorism.

The United Nations had held Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government responsible for a sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun in April 2017. More than 87 people were killed in the attack in Syria’s Northwest province of Idlib on April 4.