'Neurotoxic' attack in Syria

Humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres has said there are strong indications that a chemical attack was carried out in Syria. It added that doctors had treated thousands of people suffering from neurotoxic symptoms.

The Assad regime has tried to shift the blame for the attack today on rebels whilst still refusing to allow the UN to investigate.

ITV News' Middle East Correspondent Geraint Vincent reports:

French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said they were certain a neurotoxic agent was used in Syria after an alleged chemical attack in a suburb of Damascus.

MSF France President Mego Terzian said he was "almost certain" a neurotoxic agent had been used on the victims but could not say who was responsible for the attacks.

Medecins Sans Frontieres says there is strong evidence that the “large number of patients” doctors have treated in Syria were exposed to a “neurotoxic agent”.

Medecins Sans Frontieres says doctors have treated about 3,600 patients with 'neurotoxic symptoms' in Syria and that 355 of them died.

Neurotoxicity hits people who are exposed to toxic substances and suffer problems to their nervous system as a result.

Read: ITV News footage shows Syria 'gas attack' horror

Syrian state television is reporting that government soldiers found chemical agents in rebel tunnels in the Damascus suburbs of Jobar this morning. The government run station quoted a "news source" as saying:

Activists say more than a thousand people were killed in a chemical attack in Jobar on Wednesday morning.

Pictures: Rockets which 'delivered poison' to Damascus

A Syrian filmmaker has said hospital workers in Damascus are struggling to identify babies who survived the alleged chemical attack because their parents may already be dead and buried.

Speaking on Skype, Humam Husari told ITV News a large number of bodies were buried before they had been identified.

Watch: Eyewitness accounts of Damascus 'chemical attack'

World leaders are facing diplomatic deadlock over Syria, caught between video evidence that strongly suggests a chemical attack, and the absence of concrete evidence.

Footage obtained by ITV News shows the aftermath of the alleged attack: Men, women and children lying dead where they fell.

Whatever killed them will have dispersed quickly, meaning that their bodies are likely to be the only evidence about its nature.

ITV News correspondent Paul Davies reports:

Read: Horrific images of Syrian 'gas attack' are hard to forget

"We do believe that this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime on a large scale," Foreign Secretary William Hague said today.

"It is now 48 hours since the reports started to come in of what seems to have been a terrible atrocity near Damascus including the use of chemical weapons.

"This is not something that a humane or civilised world can ignore," he said. "The only possible explanation of what we've been able to see is that it was a chemical attack."

He said the UN's priority was to allow inspectors onto the sites of the attacks but so far that had not been allowed.

"Already it seems that the Assad regime has something to hide - why else wouldn't they allow the UN team to go there?"

Hague said he hoped to speak to the Russian foreign minister later today.