Darfur displaced call for investigation into chemical weapons

Leaders, Sheikhs, youth and women’s associations in the camps for the displaced in Darfur have called on the USA, the UN Security Council, the African Peace Council and the international community to conduct an independent and transparent investigation into Khartoum’s use of chemical weapons against the people in Darfur, and to bring the perpetrators to justice.

A report by Amnesty International released in September says that “evidence strongly suggests the repeated use of chemical weapons against civilians, including very young children, in Darfur’s Jebel Marra.

Omda Ahmed Ateem, the Coordinator of North Darfur camps said that the non-implementation of the resolutions of the United Nations and the Security Council on Darfur has encouraged the Khartoum government to use internationally banned weapons in its attacks on the civilians of Darfur.

The Omda he has urged the people to unite and take to the streets in popular uprising to sweep and uproot the Khartoum regime. “This is in your hands, not that of the international community,” he said in a statement.

Moral crime

Sheikh Matar Younus, the chairman of the High Committee for Displaced Persons and Refugee Camps has described the use of chemical weapons against the people of Darfur as a historical and moral crime.

He stressed that the tragedy in Jebel Marra is worse than the Amnesty International report has shown, as the number of the dead and injured is much larger than indicated the organisation’s report.

He has demanded the Security Council expedite the formation of a specialised committee to conduct a field investigation to reveal the truth.

He has also called on the Sudanese people “to assume their historic responsibility in facing the Khartoum regime which will not hesitate in the use of chemical and biological weapons to exterminate its people”.

Hussein Abu Sharati, the spokesman for the Displaced Persons and Refugees Association said that “the compromise of the Security Council, the United Nations and the ICC in the arrest of President Omar Al Bashir and the delay in bringing them to justice has led him ignore and disregard the international institutions and trample its resolution under his feet until he used chemical weapons against his own people in Darfur:.

Stop bloodshed

He also called on the Sudanese people to go out in mass protests and marches so as to stop the bloodshed in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile, as well as pressuring the international community to bring the perpetrators of war crimes and genocide to justice.

On Thursday the Assistant to the President, Ibrahim Mahmoud, said in a press conference that “the allegations of using chemical weapons in Darfur are fabricated, unfounded and coming from organisations targeting Sudan in order to disrupt its civilised project”.