The African Civil Society Organisations Forum called on the Sudanese authorities to open relevant facilities and records to inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, allowing an independent investigation into allegations that the Sudanese army used chemical weapons.
The forum submitted its recommendations to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which begins the public part of its 89th ordinary session on Monday in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. Its meetings will continue until 21 October. The recommendations followed the forum’s proceedings, held from 8 to 10 October with the participation of about 400 representatives of human rights organisations and institutions from 37 African countries, along with international participants.
The organisations’ collective position is due to be presented to the African Commission during its session, potentially paving the way for an official African decision addressing the war in Sudan and allegations involving the use of prohibited weapons.
Calls to open facilities and records to inspectors
The forum called on the authorities in Port Sudan to co-operate fully with states parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention and with regional and international fact-finding mechanisms. It also called for the organisation to be allowed to send technical teams to Sudan to conduct an investigation that, it said, must be comprehensive, independent and transparent, and completed in a timely manner.
The recommendations went beyond a general call for an investigation. The forum called on Sudan, as a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, to declare any facilities designated for producing such weapons and disclose the locations of related munitions, if any. It also called for the organisation to be enabled to verify those sites and oversee the destruction of the relevant weapons or munitions in accordance with the convention’s provisions.
The forum said opening sites and records to international inspectors would allow the allegations to be technically verified or disproved. Conversely, it said the continued inability of independent technical bodies to gain access would keep the issue open and deepen doubts surrounding reports of possible chemical weapons use during the war.
The forum said that, if substantiated, the allegations against the Sudanese army would constitute a grave violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons. It expressed concern over what it described as Sudan’s failure so far to co-operate with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in investigating the allegations, making co-operation with inspectors one of the main demands submitted to the African Commission.
Chemical weapons allegations amid the course of the war
The decision linked the chemical weapons issue to the broader context of military operations in Sudan and referred to the use of methods it described as a “scorched-earth war”. This context included air and artillery bombardment and drone attacks targeting densely populated civilian areas, according to the forum’s recommendations.
The forum condemned violations attributed to both sides of the conflict, with particular attention to air bombardment and drone attacks. It referred to mounting allegations against the Sudanese army of targeting populated areas and civilian facilities in Darfur, Kordofan and other parts of Sudan, without determining the validity of those allegations before the required investigations are conducted.
War worsens displacement, hunger and disruption to education
The condemnation included extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and enforced disappearance, as well as sexual and gender-based violence. The forum also condemned ethnically motivated killings and attacks targeting civilians, and called for verification and accountability measures concerning violations committed during the conflict.
The forum based its position on a series of decisions issued by the African Commission since 2020. Those decisions addressed the military coup in October 2021, violations linked to military rule, and the serious deterioration in human rights conditions since war broke out between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces in April 2023.
The forum placed the current war within an accumulated pattern involving coups, militarisation and impunity, rather than treating it as an event separate from earlier political and security developments. It said this pattern had brought state institutions and their heavy weapons into a conflict whose humanitarian cost is borne primarily by civilians.
Call for a ceasefire, secure international aid and African co-ordination to hold perpetrators accountable
Regarding the cessation of fighting, the forum called for an immediate ceasefire subject to monitoring by an independent international mechanism. It called for safe corridors for civilians and guaranteed access to food, medicine and life-saving aid, amid the repeated collapse of previous truces and a lack of trust between the two sides of the war.
The recommendations linked the need for independent monitoring of the ceasefire to concerns that aid and humanitarian routes could be used as tools of military and political pressure. They also called for an end to all forms of external intervention supporting the warring parties, including arms supplies, financing the war effort and providing diplomatic and political cover for either side of the conflict.
The forum said external supply networks gave the warring parties the ability to prolong the war. Accordingly, it linked the protection of civilians to cutting off sources of weapons and funding, alongside imposing a ceasefire, ensuring that it was monitored by an independent body, and securing the delivery of humanitarian aid to affected populations.
The forum called on African Union states and the international community to strengthen co-ordination to end impunity, arrest all those wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur, and hand them over to the court.
This demand extends to accountability for previous crimes in Darfur and violations attributed to parties to the current war. The call comes as officials and figures linked to former President Omar al-Bashir’s regime and Islamic Movement networks continue to be present in areas under army control, despite arrest warrants and international allegations relating to crimes in Darfur.
Through its recommendations, the forum seeks to move from documentation and condemnation to demanding practical measures against those responsible for violations. The public sessions of the African Commission’s 89th session are being held at the King Fahd Hotel in Dakar, with representatives of African states, national human rights institutions, international organisations and civil society taking part.
Attention will focus on the commission’s position on demands to establish a ceasefire-monitoring mechanism, investigate allegations involving chemical weapons, open facilities to inspectors and hold those responsible for violations accountable.
Including the chemical weapons issue in recommendations issued by a broad gathering of African human rights organisations represents a shift of the allegations to an organised African level, after the issue had been raised in Western initiatives and within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The African Commission’s decision during its session, which runs until 21 October, will determine whether it adopts these recommendations or turns them into formal demands directed at the Sudanese authorities and the parties to the conflict.
