France is sending humanitarian aid to Syria after a suspected gas attack killed more than 80 civilians earlier this week, among them many children, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Thursday.

Ayrault said the humanitarian aid contained 500 kg of emergency medicine to treat the victims and protection equipment to better respond to eventual attacks.

The aid is to be sent via Turkey and will distributed by the French aid group Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), he added.

The foreign minister reiterated "calls on the international community to react unanimously against such practices", which he said were "an evidence of the barbarity that Syrian people have been victims of for so many years".

According to a report of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 86 people were killed in a toxic gas attack on Tuesday on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in the country's northwestern province of Idlib.

Source: Xinhua