Khartoum accused of using chemical weapons against civilians

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir. PHOTO | FILE 

By FRED OLUOCH

In Summary

• Amnesty International says it has horrific evidence of the repeated use of what are believed to be chemical weapons against civilians
• This is not the first time that Sudan faces such allegations

An international human rights organisation accuses the Sudan government of using chemical weapons on innocent civilians in Darfur, including children, in its war against rebels.

Amnesty International says it has gathered horrific evidence of the repeated use of what are believed to be chemical weapons against civilians, including very young children, by Sudanese government forces in Jebel Marra, one of the remote regions of Darfur over the past eight months.

Survivors and local human rights monitors provided the names of 367 civilians, including 95 children who were killed in Jebel Marra.

However, Sudan Embassy in Nairobi, refutes the claims saying that they are fabricated that does not have physical presence in Sudan and it is part of the efforts by international human rights and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to constantly paint the Sudanese government in band light.

Using satellite imagery, more than 200 in-depth interviews with survivors and expert analysis of dozens of images showing babies and young children with terrible injuries, Amnesty International says its investigation indicates that at least 30 likely chemical attacks have taken place in the Jebel Marra since January 2016, with the most recent being September 9.

“The scale and brutality of these attacks is hard to put into words. The images and videos we have seen in the course of our research are truly shocking; in one a young child is screaming with pain before dying; many photos show young children covered in lesions and blisters. Some were unable to breath and vomiting blood,” said Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s Director of Crisis Research.

She continued, “It is hard to describe just how cruel the effects of these chemicals are when they come into contact with the human body. Chemical weapons have been banned for decades in recognition of the fact that the level of suffering they cause can never be justified. The fact that Sudan’s government is now repeatedly using them against their own people simply cannot be ignored and demands action.”

Hybrid operation

The Sudanese government forces launched a large-scale military offensive in January 2016 against the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW) who they accuse of ambushing military convoys and attacking civilians in Jebel Marra.

However, Elsadig Abdalla Elias, the Sudanese Ambassador to Kenya, told The East African that the claims were built on fake and fabrication evidence because Sudan has signed all international treaties which forbid using the chemical weapons.

Mr Elias said that a number of international envoys visited Sudan recently, including the British and US special envoys who visited Darfur twice and they did not raise the issue of use of chemical weapons.

Moreover, Mr Elias says that there are many UN organizations, international, regional as well as many NGOs working in Darfur—including thousands of UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNMID) soldiers scattered in the region—but none of them mentioned anything about these chemical weapons.

“Since this organisation have no base in Sudan and all the evidences were just collected through hearsay. It is therefore obvious that this report has no credibility at all,” said Mr Elias.

The report says that hundreds more survived attacks but in the hours and days after exposure to the chemicals developed symptoms including severe gastrointestinal conditions involving bloody vomiting and diarrhoea; blistering and rashes on skin which reportedly hardened, changed colour and fell off; eye problems including complete loss of vision; and respiratory problems which were reported to be the most common cause of death.

Pharmaceutical factory

Amnesty International says it presented the findings to two independent chemical weapons experts, who both pointed at evidence of exposure to vesicants, or blister agents, such as the chemical warfare agents sulfur mustard, lewisite or nitrogen mustard.

"This suspected use of chemical weapons represents not only a new low in the catalogue of crimes under international law by the Sudanese military against civilians in Darfur, but also a new level of hubris by the government towards the international community,” said Ms Hassan.

But Mr Elias says that it is not the first time that Sudan faces such allegations, the best example al- Shifa pharmaceutical Factory in Khartoum which was aerial bombed in 1989 based on allegations that the factory was manufacturing chemical weapons .“Later the whole world including the bombarding country discovered that the allegations was baseless and fabricated,” he said.