Survivors do not believe that justice will come

One summer night ten years ago, the Al Shami family was awakened by the sound of missiles, but not by the usual explosions. Instead, the family members started breathing hard.

Giad al Shami, 26, remembers how everyone tried to escape to the roof of their building in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, which at the time was under the control of opposition fighters trying to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Al Shami's mother, three sisters and two brothers died that night as victims of the August 21, 2013, sarin gas attack that killed hundreds and injured thousands.

Ten years later, Al Shami and other survivors told The Associated Press that no one has been held accountable for that attack and other crimes committed in Syria during Syria's brutal civil war, now in its 13th year.

Over the past year, Assad's government - accused by the United Nations of multiple chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians - has managed to emerge from political isolation.

Assad was readmitted to the Arab League, after Syria's membership was suspended in 2011 following the crackdown on anti-government demonstrations. With the help of allies Russia and Iran, Assad has also regained much of the lost territory.

"For all those who shake hands with Assad today, this anniversary should serve as a reminder of the crimes committed by his regime," Laila Kiki, director of the Syria Campaign group, said in a statement.

In 2013, Assad was widely held responsible for the Ghouta attack, with weapons experts claiming the missile systems used were part of the Syrian army's arsenal.

The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons, while Russia has claimed the Ghouta attack was carried out by the opposition in an attempt to provoke foreign military intervention.

The United States threatened military retaliation after the attack, with then-President Barack Obama saying Assad's use of chemical weapons was a "red line."

However, the American public and Congress were wary and skeptical of a new war after the attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the end, Washington agreed to a deal with Moscow for Assad to hand over his stockpile of chemical weapons.

The Syrian government and its allies regained control of Ghouta in 2018, with most residents fleeing to the last rebel stronghold in northwestern Syria.

Abdel Rahman Sabija, a medical technician and former suburban resident, moved to the city of Afrin in the northern province of Aleppo, which is now under the control of Turkish-backed groups.

"We have lost hope in the international community," Sabija, who was working at the hospital at the time of the attack, told AP. "Why should we trust them when no one has yet answered for all the children who were left without families".

Sabija said that he was used to shelling and bombing from the air, but that after the attack in 2013, everything was different. The streets were eerily quiet, "like a ghost town," he recalls. "We entered a house and saw a baby only a few months old dead in bed with its parents."