You're reading: CNN: Amesbury victims poisoned by same nerve agent used on ex-spy

CNN: Amesbury victims poisoned by same nerve agent used on ex-spy

By CNN.

Published July 5, 2018 at 9:49 am

Police officers are seen outside a residential address in Amesbury, southern England, on July 4, 2018 where police reported a man and woman were found unconscious in circumstances that sparked a major incident.Two people have been hospitalised in a critical condition for exposure to an "unknown substance" in the same British city where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent earlier this year. British police declared a "major incident" after the couple, a man and a woman in their 40s, were discovered unconscious at a house in a quiet, newly-built area in the village of Amesbury. / AFP PHOTO / Geoff CADDICK

Photo by AFP

British investigators have descended upon a small English town to find out how two seemingly random individuals were exposed to the same Soviet-era nerve agent that nearly killed a former Russian double agent and his daughter earlier this year.

Authorities confirmed July 4 night that a couple, identified in British media as Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, were being treated for exposure to Novichok, a highly toxic nerve agent first developed in secret by the Soviet Union.