Douma Basement Shelter Confusion

Douma Chemical Massacre
Douma Basement Shelter Confusion
And a new critique of alleged survivor accounts
November 3-?, 2019
(rough, incomplete)
...
note: I haven't finished writing or parsing all this yet ... to be sorted, cleaned-up, likely filled in with a few further bits, and then perhaps to be continued. Possibly none of those, depending... it's close enough to post, so I can move on to the next project that first needed this established (at least this well, or enough to link to). 
Note 11-5: there's more to add than I realized. Running updates up to now and for a few more days might finish or get it close enough to leave and come back to...

The basement shelter we heard about
The accepted death toll from the Douma chemical massacre is still a "verified" 42 and an unclear number of additional, unverified deaths (the scale and reasons for ambiguity also remain unexplained, as far as I know). The majority of 35 were said to be identified, and should be the same reported and seen at just one known location dubbed "Location 2" by OPCW investigators.

At least two witnesses agreed the basement shelter there in question had 52 people, maybe up to 60, and 40+ or 47 died/only five survived, and at least one is clear on it being location 2, where the 35 bodies were seen. Overview of these odd witnesses and a few others - I'll repeat much of this and even expand on it here. Two stories compete for what should be just one scene - that was staged to begin with. So some details from the "survivors" speaking for each version are worth considering to see which set appears more reliable. First the small set describing this known and placed shelter.

Khaled Nuseir:
AP report w/video on youtube (from the text description, including a full transcript): "One resident, Khaled Nuseir, said 47 people were killed, including his pregnant wife and two young daughters, in one underground shelter." … "only five people in the shelter survived." = 52 total. He also gives "we were around 50 to 60 people in the basement. All the alley was in this basement," suggesting no one on this (street/block?) was in any other basement, so … just 50-60 living in that "alley". (US News report from SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press)

The same US News AP article continues: "Khaled Nuseir was in the two-room shelter with 51 other people when the fumes hit. He ran to a nearby clinic, calling for paramedics to help, but fainted in the clinic. … The 25-year-old vegetable vendor said he woke up some time later to people putting vinegar and water on his face. He ran back to the shelter where he found his wife and two daughters dead, white foam covering their mouths."

In the YouTube description he says the attack happened in the middle of dusk prayers. The right time is sunset, which seems to have been at 6:59PM, and he should get to the clinic quickly and pass out all by 7:30, more than likely. In US News, he claims he was passed out for some 6.5 hours from that point; "I woke up at two o'clock after midnight (0200 local time)"

But in a longer account with an AP video report, he gives a different story: During the prayers, "we felt a bottle of gas was opened - it was not a hit. I fainted for almost 10 hours" That could be the same 6-7 hour span described above, rounded way up. But the locale is different, implicitly right there, immediately after the chlorine hit, rather than at the clinic; "When I woke up, I ran to the hospital." That conflicts with the above, and with how chlorine does not make you pass out, right away or usually at any point. And this "almost 10 hours" makes for quite a long exposure to just wake back up still not dead, implicitly around 5 am, long after he would be seen fainted and presumed dead in numerous videos of the scene starting around 10:00 pm, where he does not appear.

Of course they don't show the basement, and that's where he would be if he passed out instantly, and it's where he says his family still was in the morning, so … nevermind that part. In the AP video transcription, Nuseir specifies running for help after waking up, leaving his family behind, but failing to rouse any sympathy, "I ran to the basement and found my children and my wife on the ground with foam at their mouths. I carried my children to the hospital." This was early in the morning, implicitly. Too bad no one was later seen collapsed in the basement - all were on the ground floor, the floor above, the stairs just a bit higher, and just outside the door, from around 10pm until their removal, most of them only on April 8, shortly before noon (judging by solar angles).

However, he's no complete ignoramus; seems he has pictures of the two girls who are removed from the scene earlier than the rest. From the AP video report, unique clothing connects one and probably then both of these.

Continuing: "His wife, Fatmeh Qarout, was nine months pregnant. His daughters, Qamar — Arabic for moon — and Nour — Arabic for light — were 18 months and 2 ½ years old." He left them in the gas as he ran for help, insisting people were "still alive" down there (since he miraculously was?) But alas, "He said only five people in the shelter survived." Noteworthy here: The only victim that looks 9-months pregnant (W5 as listed in my own system) is seen on the ground floor, and never has visible foam from her mouth; by the first views, any foam has collapsed to the usual yellow-brown fluid. This view shows where that woman is compared to where the two girls had been. This photo was taken well into the morning of 8 April, after daybreak, but those 2 bodies alone were gone long before this in full dark (all 3 smaller children in the middle here were moved there from other spots during the night, but the rest of the bodies have been left alone).

In these sources, Mr. Nuseir continues with a long, confusing story where he carries out his girls' bodies, getting no help from the White Helmets, raising some timeline issue on the way. He also offers some "conspiracy theorizing" about the scene being staged, he thinks by the much-despised Jaish Al-Islam. That does sound like the right gist … but to me that's all a bit unlikely for a grieving man who's so dazed by the gas and the loss of his family it seems he briefly forgot about the latter ...

See, the same man in the same clothing gave a first account (anonymously? to German NTV April 17, a day earlier than his other accounts - report link) including no mention of anyone he knows dying. In this earlier account, there was simply a strange smell from something released somewhere by who-knows-what method. He says it made him feel something that cleared up after a drink of water. Strangely, some other locals (an old man with a very attentive young friend) would show up to agree with him on these points - there was some gas all over, for real, but it was also mild, and no one was saying who might be to blame - they seem so reasonable and moderate, you might question the growing claims from other locals who had been contesting any gas release. In fact is this same video dispatch, some of these show up, described as a "majority" more consistently denying smells or anything. The screen-grabs below summarize the encounter:

So it's all contested. We don't know much about the credibility of those late-appearing witnesses, likely government supporters and debatably thuggish in their total denial of ANY gas release, even these mild and thus maybe credible reports, led by the guy we would also know as Mr. Nuseir. And it seems like he shortly invented a 10-hour unconsciousness and a dead family to improve and expand his rather boring first story. So … "pro-Assad thugs" or "Shabiha" or not, the majority view here really does seem far more credible, doesn't it?

In context, this faker Nuseir and his juicy tidbits about JaI and the White Helmets look like well-conceived poison fruit, concocted (probably NOT by him, but possibly by him) as bait to accept his story. That includes in-home deaths, which as it happens, would deny and conceal what seems the true story of their systematic murder in gas chambers. That's what I sensed right off, and stand by as pretty likely, and hence that early blog post linked to above, where I also considered ...

Naser Hanan:

It could just be the Nuseir-Naser thing that makes these two alleged witnesses so easy to confuse. Well, that and their bland, moderate appearance (they don't LOOK like Jihadists...), their strange stories of miracle survival, and claims to explain a share of the dead, with each share including a lost wife, and both swearing to … not quite the running opposition story, but not apparently the truth either. But this other "survivor" gives a more consistent story, and does it from the scene recognized as the OPCW's location 2 with the 35 seen fatalities.

Mr. Hanan spoke with Swedish TV 4, Nyheterna, Stefan Borg - orig. link + transcript - video available on YouTube. and also to at least Seth Doan with CBS News. Further, a reporter for Japanese Kyodo News spoke with him in less detail, along with other neighbors. "This is where the chemical bomb landed. Look," Nasr Hanan, 20, said, pointing to a yellow cylinder …"

My Finnish friend Petri Krohn transcribed the Nyheterna interview some time ago over at ACLOS. 1:00 - Q: What happened to the rest of your family?
1:01 - They all died. My wife, my brothers, my mother. They all died.

But only one brother is named and shown - no other brothers and no wife or mother shown or named. Note: in normal Muslim culture, these would most likely have different names than Hanan, so it's hard to identify what females he could mean. But then three women named Hanan do appear among the dead, so … unclear. But Mr. Hanan shows a video of his dead brother Hamzah to CBS reporter Seth Doan, with the usual unexplained upper-face staining that was invisible in early views (and it seems to be the same man, and I can see the cause for the especially discolored areas from his position relative to expelled fluids... pictures elsewhere. But this helps clarify the effect seems to get worse over time, an apparent clue that's been emerging with deeper study - full meaning yet to decipher). This came with an interview with Hanan at location 2, in what he claims to be the family's second-floor apatment, where many of the dead - including Hamzah - were seen. Hanan then took Doan to the rooftop cylinder alleged impact point.

To Nyheterna 4, he took the reporters instead to the basement shelter. He explains how they lived there, in the standard segregation, with women and (young/female) children over here, men and (older) boys over here (gesturing), in a 2-room shelter with no third room mentioned. It seems this basement did have extra space, but that might all be needed for cooking, toilets, etc.

Kyodo News: "Hanan and his neighbors said that after the gas entered, the residents tried to get out of the cellar and then escaped to other rooms in the apartment building. Within hours, 25 people had died in a room on the first floor and nine others died in Hanan's apartment on the third floor. Some died on the street."

Nyheterna interview, Krohn transcription, condensed - this is interesting:
0:22 - We were sitting in the cellar. Seven in the evening the house was hit. … We (men?) ran out while women and children ran inside the house. They did not know that the house was hit from above and was filled with gas. Those that ran  inside died immediately. I ran out quite … " He's cut off there. Quite quickly? Or quite a while later, after he was passed out for hours? That's a valid question considering Mr. Nusseir above and the others below.

Later in the Nyheterna interview, at 2:31 is where explains "Suddenly there was a sound like a valve on a gas pipe was opened." Then he remembers he was down in this basement, and that would be up on that roof 3 floors above. Knowing both areas, he seems to shift gears - or tries to:
2:41 - It is difficult to explain.
2:44 - I cannot explain.
2:52 - I do not know what to say.
Then he halts this stutter-like mental grinding and remembers one of his first lessons; SHUT UP. Then another; it's about emotion, not logic. He gets collected and continues so: "The situation makes me cry. Children and toddlers, around 25 children." Yep. His own darn wife. His beloved mother. 2 anchors in this world, and 2+ brothers as well, all dead, and he knows how many dead kids will make the audience feel "his pain." We seeing this?

It's not as clear in Hanan's tory just how many were in the shelter or how many he says died, except that the report title says "40 died" in this house, perhaps rounding up or down, and Hanan says "25 children" were among the dead. (count from the 35 seen is 6 boys, 12 girls, 2 infants, so 20 children. Is his 25 a different rounding, or does his total include 5 extra kids, who might be half of the 12 extra deaths Mr. Nuseir reported (47 vs. 35). That would suggest he agrees on the larger total. Then Kyodo News heard "The total number of dead reached around 50, the residents said." It's not clear if that rounds up or down, includes just the shelter victims, or how many others, etc. But it sounds like everyone so far might agree on the basic breakdown of about 52 people in the shelter, and around 47 of those dying.

He also doesn't say how many ran outside, but could be just four - him and 3 other younger clean-shaven men, who all let their wives and young, promising children just run inside back in to die just trying to wash up. (That is, if this were to line up - Mr. Nuseir says 5 people lived, and he was still passed out inside for 10 hours, so a maximum 4 could escape right away).

... and claim of gender-segregated escape vs. anti-escape:
James Harkin, The Intercept: "The testimony of Nasser Hanan, one of the few survivors who was in the house when the attack happened, only added to the confusion. According to him, the inhabitants of that apartment block, like most civilians in Douma, had been cowering in the basement around 7 p.m." citing story to Borg. Harkin asks "But why would anyone run back into a building full of toxic gas?"

Both Nuseir and Harkin get the issue here you might get if you went to the scene, or carefully studied enough video footage: the stairs don't connect internally. To simply "run upstairs" from the basement, as so many have described, means to come around the middle wall here, which means out on the sidewalk and thus in relatively fresh air, then chose to back inside and upstairs - and without reversing as the gas got worse the higher they went.

No, it never did make any sense. In fact, applying the same problem in reverse - how did enough gas ever get TO the basement  to drive them out, if it could also roll out across the sidewalk? If the basement's bad, the street is somehow worse, because the inside above that is way, way worse. And yet we hear the chosen escape route for about 3 dozen people was to run consistently into the worse and worse air until they died. At first he says people died "immediately" as they ran into the gas they didn't know was even worse inside. That could make sense...

The intent he deduced was to wash up, and he says his brother made it to a sink and washed his face, but died anyway. We could wonder how he knew or saw those things, but perhaps he just deduced from seeing them dead with wet faces and hair (for real or on video). Anyway, the lack of instant death is a problem he tried to gloss over above in claiming instant death. Because would they really not know about the worsening gas they were just fleeing, all the way to this sink or that basin, up however many stairs, all through the complete washing of their heads before it finally damned on them and far too late - they should have run with the smarter men. Maybe if the men had offered some advice? In fact the Kyodo News reporter heard from locals including Mr. Hanan to summarize "Within hours, 25 people had died in a room on the first floor and nine others died in Hanan's apartment on the third floor," and that slow death is what helped a consulted expert conclude that chlorine might explain it.

The other survivors from what seems to be this shelter/story:
Only five people lived, says Khaled Nuseir, and clearly he's one. Hr. Hanan claims to be another, even if the two men don't actually vouch for each others' survival (unclear). There are few if any others I HAD heard from, at least none in great detail, so the other three would be less clear. There are some "survivors" on record from what can't be this same shelter or same group of people (see next section).

And there are others I've missed, which Reader Andrew has some or all of (see comments). He suggested about 6 other cited witnesses to consider, and I think two of these are clear enough to include as among the few people claiming to have lived through this exact shelter-gassing event.

"Abu Walid": The Guardian reported "Abu Walid, a survivor of the attack, whose pregnant wife and only son died, said: “I saw my son coughing. I told him pull it together and run up the stairs. I grabbed my wife and ran after him. Next thing I recall was someone opening and closing my eyelids and dousing me with water. For five hours I lost consciousness, and had no idea where I was. They told me a chemical attack took place, they told me I lost my wife and son and everybody else was martyred. I told them I wish you didn’t rescue me.”

The "everyone else" suggests the three were in a larger group, of whom "everyone" but him died. Maybe him and about 4 other guys. Unlike Mr. Nuseir whose two daughters died, "Abu Walid" lost his only son who, the nickname suggests, is named Walid (Abu meaning 'father of' and is usually followed by an actual son's name, maybe a daughter's. But only one Walid is listed by the VDC among the 35 or so identified victims, and as a married man. Some children are listed as adults, but not married. Unless that's a mix-up too, and Sara Hisham al-Smadi is his mother, not wife, as it says. Instead, she'd be the wife of Abu Walid Zohair Raslan. And a mix-up like that actually makes some sense.

The Abu Walid - Khaled Nuseir similarities are striking, as if one is a movie and the other is a remake of that movie, except they're supposed to be true stories that unfolded the same night in the same basement shelter. Aside from the loss of all living children, each man had a pregnant wife who died (there's no necessary conflict over which bod(ies) they might refer to, and if there is a conflict, I haven't found it yet). Young children and even unborn ones and fertile wives lost are potent themes - the future is dying. Now why are Assad's chlorine bombs so amazingly good at drawing that message out,with at least two of the very few fighting-age male survivors? And how does he do it using just chlorine, which is not paralytic and hardly ever fatal? Each says he was passed out for hours, sometimes right there in the basement, so just in case the poison had to kill slowly, that's why they did nothing to stop it. Both men somehow survived and were spoken to by the media so they got their stories out there, and to provide explanations for five of the bodies. And with their promising family futures both wiped out at once and their stories told, the men themselves are freed to just disappear into the sunset. If they like, their character could be retired.  

Finally, Kyodo News also heard from Abu Mohammad, 35, said shells landed on the apartment around 7 p.m. and then "yellow smoke filled the cellar." "It had a very strong smell like a mixture of detergent and bleach." This all we hear from this guy, so it's not AS clear he belongs. No dead wife, no passing out mentioned, no hearing the valve pop, and no mention of being among a large pool of people. But to experience it this directly, after it seems his own building was struck, should put him at location 2. That would make 4 alleged survivors we've heard from. If there were five and we never hear from the fifth, that's still a pretty remarkable record; at least 60% and probably 80% of survivors at least would be on the record, managing to escape both Assad's deadly gas and his attempted media blackout.

Loc. 2 shelter overview:
“The victims were only in that building,” said one cameraperson, Emad Aldin," and apparently, the gas release only happened there too, because he adds “but the whole street could smell it.”
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/09/douma-chemical-attack-evidence-syria/

More info, perhaps, in time. But Nuseir + Hanan agree on the basic number.

From the brief view from al-Doumani video - which by editing gave the false impression the people seen a moment later were down these stairs, as many people first reported - including Mr. Nuseir, it sounds like (family found in the basement). Serious question: is this from a memory of going down there to find them, or a fake account informed by that leading video edit?  Anyway, from that video, enhanced a bit to revel details hidden in shadow ("levels" adjustment + light "sharpening"), here's the closest we get to seeing the basement at the attack time, and a few details of varying or unclear importance are noted for reference: apparent shoes, a curtained-off area that may be extremely sooty or dirty, something glimpsed in that space, an odd shelf that may not matter, and a window that appears later, with Douma grapes logo of Douma Coordination Committee.

Then, that adds barely at all to the Nyheterna video, several views (here in small form - larger versions perhaps as needed) help to establish  most of the space down here these 50-60 people were packed in, as claimed - the unseen area and a sort of troubling area with some remaining soot are both initially behind that blue curtain … maybe nothing more than a basement kitchen with a sloppy cooking fire, maybe a sign that this is where those people were gassed before being dragged upstairs. a narrow walkway seems to exist to the right of the stairs, and maybe another space, or another way to the same unseen space, lies tucked away back there. All unknown thus far.

One point in all this that's changed from my earlier analysis is the earlier certainty the bodies were brought from somewhere else. This still seems the most likely option, but I never could rule out an on-site gassing in the little-seen basement of location 2. The above visual clues are enough to raise at least suspicions that they never had to be driven down the tunnels or smuggled down any streets, but just up from the basement. That alone would involve a lot of visible work out on the sidewalk, and even the witnesses who claim hey saw the body planting say it involved trucks, coming from what someone seemed perhaps too sure was al-Tawba prison. (from accounts in Russian presentation here)

Nothing indicative turned up in the OPCW's public findings from the basement - the usual chlorine indicators with the usual unstated levels might matter, if the fatal agent turned out to be chlorine (it doesn't seem chlorine can explain all the signs, but then it seems no chemical can, in itself...). They found some of that ubiquitous TNT, and the common insecticide malathion just on one stray headscarf, maybe just to treat head-lice in an innocent non-prisoner sort of way. Long-term shelter life might require a lot of malathion. I still tend to credit those findings as suggesting the gassing was done elsewhere, but the signs could be kept to an area the FFM was somehow kept out of; a locked door with no owner to open it proved sufficient elsewhere in the building (The Syrian government escorted them, but refuse to break any locks or force any entry). And if there were real findings down there that implicated the foreign-baked insurgents, there would of course be a concerted effort at the OPCW to erase those facts. That in turn could succeed or become known and challenged, but all we can see is no visible challenge on that particular issue between the few whistleblowers we've heard from so far.


The other gassed basement (?)

I haven't previously given the following witnesses due consideration in my own work - partly from not understanding where to put them or rate their relevance. Now upon more review, that remains unclear and becomes the issue.

A grin-prone girl named "Masa," age 7, became a star witness to balance out the boy Hassan Diab. Like him, she was seen in the faked clinic video, but unlike Hassan and his family, Masa and hers maintained it was all real, and then fled to Idlib and Turkey with the Islamists. Masa (ACLOS picture from BBC video and prior analysis by commenter Andrew), along with her twin sister and their mother "Amani" (aka Umm Nour) and their father, given in some sources as Diaa Mohamed, might be called the Mohamed family. This is the same family in a refugee camp that pulled the famous stunt with CNN's Arwa Damon, filmed sniffing the clothes that just could not be rid of the chlorine smell, stuffed away in a pink Dora the Explorer backpack produced by the father. The twin girls said a lot of adorable things about saving ants and being doctors, hide their tears and/or laughter at some emotional points, etc. All quite moving stuff... (CNN report)

"For their last four months in Douma, the family lived in a basement. They were underground when the toxic rounds hit." Not much further detail is given tin that CNN report, but the family claims to be from the very building where one of the two chlorine clylinders landed. An earlier account to the BBC, and a Times exclusive (The little girl whose agony set the West on path to war, by Louise Callaghan, April 15 2018) were picked up by a few, mostly British tabloid-type news sites:
The Sun: "Seven-year-old Masa and her family were among 75 neighbours who had taken shelter in a basement while bombs were dropped on their homes."
"They were among the lucky ones - only three of the neighbours in their basement died. Everyone in the one nextdoor died where they were after failing to hear the gas."

Daily Mail: Speaking to the BBC, [Masa] said: 'We were in Douma in the basement under shelling. Suddenly they dropped a barrel. It did not explode. But it made [a sound like] 'feesshh'." Kids can hear the darndest things from the roof while they're down in the basement.

That fishy sound saved their lives, and many others; in the same report, Masa's mother Amani "said three people had died in the basement where her family had sheltered, but that dozens were killed in the cellar next door because they had not heard the gas until it was too late, and were unable to get out." But of course Mr. Hanan says they heard the valve opening anyway, and Mr. Nuseir says they "felt" it, so they had the same warning, a proven 3 floors of spread during which to act before they could even smell it, but they just died more heavily for some reason.

The various sources tell their story involving the another and the girls, their father Diaa, and/or an uncle who helped them deal with the absurd attack. Masa and Amani climbed clear up to the 4th floor (which, if it's UK floor numbering, makes this building taller than the 4-story location 2), perhaps finally getting above the gas, which Masa describes as "spicy" and causing her to cough and vomit. Calaghan, Sunday Times: "Amani collapsed, briefly unconscious. Masa lay next to her, foaming at the corners of her mouth," as observed by whoever. But then they got better, and had to go right back down the stairs to find Malaz and Diaa, who "had collapsed on he building's second floor after inhaling the gas – but were conscious and the family made it outside to the street."

It sounds like none of them lost consciousness except briefly, however long they climbed up and down the stairs or just lay there, perhaps exhausted. And of course none died. Is that all because they started moving around in the gas early, from the sonic warning? While next door, the silent attack had people dropping unconscious and mostly dead on first contact with what's presumably the same gas?

"The family managed to stumble their way to a clinic where the twins, who were struggling to breathe, were given injections.
They were among the lucky ones - only three of the neighbours in their basement died. Everyone in the one nextdoor died where they were after failing to hear the gas." (thesun) Masa is said to be barely breathing at the clinic scene nearly everyone agrees now was staged, but handling it with great calm - no sign of distress past bored and really, really wet. No redness of the eys suggests no serious exposure to chlorine or any similar caustic agent, so no damage to the airways is expected. It was claimed, yes, but it's not visually suggested at all - for whatever that's worth, considering the camera doesn't lie while people sometimes do.

The twins were barely breathing but were given injections – while their mother was rushed back...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5620439/Syrian-girl-seen-harrowing-hospital-video-chemical-attack-tells-survived.htmlV
… suffered later flare-ups, and "failing lungs" over the following weeks …
https://www.npr.org/2018/04/23/605045010/with-failing-lungs-survivor-of-suspected-chemical-attack-in-syria-tells-her-stor

in the same shelter? CNN report

"Let them hit Bashar, maybe it will save us," 18-year-old Malak says cradling her four-month-old. Her voice is flat, muffled by despair, as if resigned to the idea that nothing can rescue them from their suffering. She was underground when the chemical strike happened," and apparently affected her, but no one else in her immediate family, who were all somewhere else luckily. Her husband is a rebel fighter, allegiance unspecified. 

(no family with her to speak for). Female, no corpses to explain, now in Turkey-area jihadist refugee camp - does not sound like one of the few who escaped from location 2. 

Trying to correlate the two shelter-stories
The Amani-Masa or Mohamed family story is clear on citing two basements, presumably in two adjacent buildings, and the sets of people are different - one mostly dying (so seeming to be those at location 2) and the other set mostly surviving. There are however other readings possible, which matters since the given details wind up competing with those accepted by the FFM and others.

Masa and Amani say there was a "barrel" impact to their building's roof, then a hissing sound and gas pouring down the stairwell inside. The same thing happened at location 2, according to a larger number of people, and we can see the cylinder there, besides the bodies. So the combined claim seems to be two chlorine tanks hitting two adjacent roofs. I once thought this story would be pinned to the then-unplaced location 4, where the other of just two chlorine cylinders was said to land. but checking the FFM report, the site they inspected as loc. 4 is a little over 400 meters to the southwest, with several city blocks and dozens of buildings in between where no one died. So that's not the location, and there's no second impact near location 2 to allow for this story.

This graphic tries to visually summarize the claims here and how they come out competing.

Let's just pause to consider if the issue can be resolved by putting all these people beneath the one cylinder; Let's say they meant the same basement, just a different shelter within it. What could better be called a "room" in that same basement, another 2-room "area," or even another "shelter" within it would instead be called its own distinct "basement" or "cellar." That's an odd verbal error to make even with translations involved, but maybe there were 127 people stuffed in there, with Masa's 75 sheltering in the other half of the basement, behind that curtain in the possibly sooty and mostly-unseen area. Maybe even behind the blanket they heard the valve opening more clearly, and managed to escape from behind it without alerting the other people in the open, 2-room shelter Naser Hanan showed us.

But clearly that doesn't pan out well. Alternately, this story could have been planned to claim that seen cylinder was never at location 2, but next door - that's why the Mohameds could hear the "feesh" sound and escape while the neighbors were too far away, so when some of the gas drifted up the street and down into their basement, they had no warning, and also it also became far deadlier and paralytic...

So what to make of it? I'm not at all sure, but my best guess is this was a poorly-planned effort to explain a case they didn't realize would eventually have a known mapping, etc. Checking the timeline, that could fit; BBC, Times, and CNN reported on the Mohamed family's claims all on 15 April, apparently with no later accounts adding any supporting details; it was a one-day story. Then interviews relating to Location 2 start in their place quite neatly on the following day, running on the 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, and 21st. * As soon as people could make sense of the claims in time and space, or as soon as someone realized that was inevitable, it could be that ill-advised first effort fell apart.
* The sequence:
- 4/16 Hanan, CBS (roof) and Nyheterna4 (basement),
- 4/17 AbuWalid, Guardian (dead family, 5 hr. pass-out)
- 4/17 Nuseir (strange smell only version - yet to inherit Abu Walid's story?), NTV
- 4/18 Nuseir (dead family, escape then 6hr. pass-out) AP-USNews
- 4/20 Hanan, Kyodo news (roof)
- 4/21 Nuseir (dead family, 10hr. pass-out then escape), AP-Vid

Other possible but not compelling explanations:
- the Mohamed family's story got scrambled in translation and/or in their shell-shocked brains and there was no plan to claim anything except what they thought was the truth (this is quite a troy to emerge randomly out of such a primordial soup).
- there was another gas release in their building - staged or from an attack - that was subsequently ignored (this seems quite unlikely).

In the FFM report (S/1731/2019) it's mentioned how a few stray bodies thought to have died from the gas were said (not verified) to be found in other basements and the street in the same area as location 2, as well as on some rooftops, strangely. And there's an unverified, little-noted claim of a third chemical device:
"8.68 Three casualties stated that another device had landed and released chlorine gas in front of their house approximately 50 to 60 meters from the basement at Location 2."

They also include a map I was slow to consider of relevant locations "The white shaded area is the general location where witnesses reported having perceived a strong odour. The red shaded areas are buildings/houses/places where witnesses reported being affected by a chemical." Wind: predicted for Douma and recorded at the airport as TO the NORTHWEST. ...

By this, the one I label B is most likely that claimed by the Mohamed family story, but its entrance is only about 12 meters from that of location 2, not 50-60. In fact all three possible shelters in that street (as Amani had claimed) seem too close to be explained by this device somewhere near that blue arc, that would best fit with exposure at the site here labeled D.

But even if we took 50-60 as meaning "15-16" and trying to explain the stray story of the next-door cellar - if there was another device so close (not verified, never seen, so probably not), whatever it released might roll into a basement next door, and even be close enough to hear any hissing sound. Maybe this is what Masa and Amani meant? No, because then why was it rolling down the stairs on them from above as they tried to climb above it, collapsing people up on the 2nd floor? If this was meant as an improvement of the story, it fails by not even explaining key details OF that story.

…

And what about the basements with the other 140 bodies?
There is also some confusion raised by the Army of Islam insiders who claimed, from Turkey one year after the event, to have seen 187 people killed in the gas attack, their bodies all found in a number of "bunkers" or underground shelters. These must be located ... somewhere … that has no corresponding place and no explanation in the accepted story.

Considering the initial running death toll handed out to various agencies wound up climbing to an estimated 180, 185, 190, and a rounded 200 before it stopped climbing (see here), I was left wondering long ago if way more than the accepted 42 were actually killed, so their claims stood out as pretty credible. That raised some questions I considered in the above-linked article, and got me going on a long consideration there of various details, especially ones that could be mapped out around location 2 - but somehow without tackling the Masa/Mohamed family shelter confusion like I finally just did. That rambling material interconnects with the stuff in this post so that a trawl of both could leave a person well-informed.