Georgia’s authorities used a World War One-era chemical weapon to quell anti-government protesters last year, evidence gathered by the BBC suggests.

“You could feel [the water] burning,” one of the protesters said of water cannon turned on him and others on the streets of the capital Tbilisi. A sensation, he said, which could not immediately be washed off.

Demonstrators against the Georgian government’s suspension of its European Union accession bid have complained of other symptoms too - shortness of breath, coughing, and vomiting that lasted for weeks.

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The BBC World Service has spoken to chemical weapons experts, whistleblowers from Georgia’s riot police, and doctors, and found the evidence points to the use of an agent that the French military named “camite”.

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Dr Konstantine Chakhunashvili, a paediatrician who was among those sprayed by the cannons, and who has taken part in many of the demonstrations, said his skin felt like it was burning for days, and the sensation couldn’t be washed away. In fact, he said, “it was worse when trying to wash it off”.

Dr Chakhunashvili wanted to find out if others had suffered similar effects. So he appealed, via social media, for those also targeted by crowd control measures during the first week of the demonstrations to fill out a survey. Nearly 350 people got in touch, and almost half said they had suffered one or more side-effects for more than 30 days.

These long-term symptoms ranged from headaches, to fatigue, coughs, shortness of breath and vomiting.

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