Syria, already torn by years of battle, on Tuesday saw yet another atrocity, one which has echoed internationally, when government forces launched a suspected chemical attack in the Idlib province of the country. The weapons used was likely to be sarin, a lethal nerve agent.
A day after the attack, which has taken the lives of more than 80 people so far, the World Health Organization (WHO) said some of the victims of the attack had symptoms consistent with exposure to a category of chemicals that includes nerve agents. (Read more) Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons previously, with former US President Barack Obama having called the use of chemical weapons his administration's red line in Syria.
According to the Time Magazine, doctors from the field hospital in the province have said that they were sure that the chemical agent used was sarin. Further, according to the Turkish health ministry, an initial analysis of victims of the attack in Syria brought to Turkey for treatment suggests that they were exposed to the deadly nerve agent sarin. The US, which on Thursday night launched a massive cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase in response to the attack, also believes that a sarin-like nerve agent was used in the attack.
What is sarin?
Sarin is a nerve agent derived from insecticides. A nerve agent disrupts the mechanisms which regulate how nerves transfer messages to organs, thereby killing an exposed individual by damaging the respiratory centre of the central nervous system and paralysing the muscles around the lungs. If not treated, the victim will most likely die of asphyxiation.
It was originally developed in 1938 in Nazi Germany. While the Nazis understood the potency of what German chemist Gerhard Schrader had created, they did not use it during the second World War, ostensibly because they feared retaliation in kind from the allies.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sarin is a clear, colourless, odourless and tasteless liquid. Further, sarin can evaporate into a vapour (gas) and spread into the environment.
What does sarin do to victims?
The most graphic description of what being exposed to sarin feels like came during a CBS News "60 Minutes" interview, when one of the victims of a previous chemical attack in Syria, Kassem Eid, described the feeling as, "it was so painful that it felt like somebody was tearing up my chest with a knife made of fire."
Once a victim is exposed to the agent, symptoms appear within seconds. In fact, the victim may not realise that he or she has been exposed to a harmful agent at all give sarin's lack of visual and olfactory signatures.
Exposure to large doses, like in the event of a deliberate attack, will, according to the CDC, lead to the following symptoms: "Loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis, respiratory failure possibly leading to death."
If the exposed individual is not treated with atropine or pralidoxime, large doses will lead to death within 10 minutes.
A recent AFP report detailing the effects of sarin the wake of the Syria attack cites the WHO as saying: "Sarin is 26 times more deadly than cyanide gas. Just a pinprick-sized droplet will kill a human."
When has sarin been used before?
The most recent past example, unfortunately, occurred also in Syria, in 2013. The Ghouta chemical attack took place on the outskirts of Damascus when rockets containing sarin struck the area. According to reports, the death toll in that attack might have gone up to 1,729. Eid, the Syrian man who spoke to CBS in the above-mentioned interview, was a survivor of this attack.
Outside the battlefield, sarin made an appearance in Tokyo in 1995. In an act of domestic terrorism, members of the cult movement Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. The attack left 12 people dead.
Saddam Hussein used the nerve agent to kill innocent Kurds in the city of Halabja in Southern Kurdistan in 1988. According to reports, the attack killed anywhere between 3,200 and 5,000 people.