Amnesty International accuses Sudan's government of using chemical weapons in Darfur

(Image credit: Scott Nelson/Getty Images)

published 29 September 2016

A new report from Amnesty International claims that since January, more than 200 people in Darfur, including children, have been killed by chemical weapons dropped by the Sudanese government.

For 13 years, Sudanese forces and rebels have been fighting in the region, and in mid-January, the government launched an offensive against the Sudan Liberation Army. Amnesty International's Tirana Hassan, director of crisis research, told the BBC that over the course of an eight month investigation in Jebel Marra, a remote part of Darfur, they found dozens of witnesses to at least 30 attacks using chemical weapons.

The "scale and brutality of these attacks is hard to put into words," Hassan said. Investigators saw images and videos of children covered with lesions and blisters, some vomiting, others unable to breathe. The witnesses told Amnesty International that after bombs were dropped, the smoke that filled the air smelled "unusual," and within minutes, people would begin to vomit, and later, their eyes and skin changed color. Some children died, while others remained in pain months after attacks. Two independent chemical weapons experts said the injuries were consistent with a chemical attack, the BBC reports, and Amnesty International is calling for an investigation. "The fact that Sudan's government is now repeatedly using those weapons against their own people simply cannot be ignored and demands action," Hassan said.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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