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S/2016/738 16-14788 67/98 chemical attacks. In case of chemicals alerts, people were encouraged to move upwind of the point of impact to higher elevations, while in case of conventional attacks people were advised to seek shelter in basements. 50. Six witnesses stated that people left the village and that during the evacuation after what they said were false alarms, their own or neighbours’ houses were looted. Some referred to people with “masks”, potentially gas masks, who were giving face masks soaked in “Coca-Cola” or “Pepsi” to children. Two witnesses referred to rumours in town of people trying to “blame” the Government or stage the incidents. 51. A witness described an air strike on the house of an armed opposition group fighter “at the end of April”. The next day, people wearing masks were “digging something out of the ground” and filming the scene, saying that Al-Tamanah was hit with toxic chlorine gas. However, the witness did not smell gas or see any injured people. When interviewed before, the same witness had not mentioned this incident. 52. Some of the witnesses said that armed men, some of them from Al-Tamanah and some foreigners from other countries, were issuing false chemical alarms saying that the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic military would attack the village with chemicals, sometimes saying chlorine, and telling people to leave the village. These alerts were issued in different ways, from vehicles with microphones, mosques or just telling people in person. Two witnesses mention the same person who was allegedly filming the “staged” scenarios. 53. One witness said that people were knocking on the door. People on motorcycles and cars told people to leave the house because a plane was going to attack. Children of different ages were running after them. Apparently the people, which the witness believes to belong to the Nusrah Front, went to the school, took the children out and gave them diapers soaked with a liquid in order to use them as gas masks, claiming that chlorine would be used in the air strike. The witness stayed at home despite the warning and did not smell or see anything. The Leadership Panel’s assessment 54. The Leadership Panel examined the existing information and evidence regarding the incident in Al-Tamanah on 25-26 May 2014 and determined that there was insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion on the actors involved and the modality of the use of chemicals as weapons in this incident. 55. This assessment was based on the following: • There is scarcity of relevant information about all incidents in Al-Tamanah. No flight movements could be established by the Mechanism. • Several witnesses stated that since April 2014, “false” chemical weapons alerts occurred frequently in non-regular intervals and that no chemicals had ever been used as weapons in Al-Tamanah. • Other witnesses informed of an unexploded “barrel bomb” which leaked chlorine. However, there was insufficient evidence to corroborate these testimonies