‘ Chemical weapons used in Darfur’
> Hundreds gassed to death by Sudan govt, says Amnesty
KHARTOUM: Sudan has been accused of launching chemical weapon attacks on its own civilians, killing hundreds of people including scores of children, in what would be a dramatic escalation of the Darfur conflict.
Amnesty International says it has compiled the first credible body of evidence to suggest the forces of President Omar al-Bashir bombed swathes of the crisis-hit Jebel Marra region with chemical agents.
The charity has released beforeand-after satellite images, pictures of horrific burn wounds on children and evidence from more than 200 interviews, and called for a United Nations investigation.
Chemical weapons attacks on the African continent in the postwar era have been extremely rare, and even the accusation could represent a major setback for Sudan’s improving relations with the international community.
But it also serves to highlight the conflict in Darfur that, since the peak of the violence and international attention in 2003, has continued to rage more or less unnoticed.
With the exception of Egypt and South Sudan, all African states have signed the Chemical Weapons Convention committing them to destroy any stockpiles.
Using chemical weapons for anything other than a specific set of military goals, let alone on civilians, is a war crime.
Yet between January and the most recent alleged incident earlier this month, Amnesty says it has recorded at least 30 likely chemical weapons attacks on Darfur civilians which have killed some 250 people – many of them children.
Countless others have suffered the effects of what appear to be chemical agents, and some described their symptoms to Amnesty during its investigation.
“Several bombs fell around the village and in the hills,” a mother from the village of Burro said.
“Most of my kids are sick from the smoke of the bombardment. They got sick on the day of the attack. They vomited and they had diarrhoea, they were coughing a lot (and) their skin turned dark like it was burned,” she said.
“This is the first documented, substantial evidence of chemical weapons use inside the Darfur region,” the report’s author Jonathan Loeb said.
“We spoke with scores of survivors and people who cared for them about these alleged chemical weapons attacks, and they all said that the alleged chemical was released by bombs or rocket fire.
“These bombs and rockets unequivocally came from Sudanese government forces, that we know beyond doubt. There are no other armed actors in the area with any air force (capable of these attacks).”
Amnesty said it had shared all its evidence with two independent chemical arms experts, and both concluded the injuries could not have been caused by conventional weapons. – The Independent