Video: Syrian boy tells of Damascus 'gas attack' "I was asleep," the bespectacled teenager told The Telegraph. Then my breath seized up. I tried the stairs but I couldn't find the steps: I had lost control of my body. His mother survived the attack but his father and brother, along with some neighbours and schoolfriends, were not so fortunate. Asked if he had a message, Abdullah replied, "God alone can help us in this world." His testimony comes after Syria's opposition accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces of gassing many hundreds of people - by one report as many as 1,300 - in a predawn attack on Wednesday. Mr Assad's government denied using chemical weapons. Western and regional countries have called for UN chemical weapons investigators, who arrived in Damascus three days ago to look into previous allegations of such attacks, to be dispatched to the scene of the latest reported attack, which occurred in suburbs east of Damascus.