African NGO forum urges Sudan to open sites to chemical weapons inspectors
African civil society groups meeting in Dakar adopted a resolution urging the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights to demand that Sudan admit OPCW technical teams to investigate accusations that the Sudanese army used chemical weapons against the Rapid Support Forces. The resolution calls on Sudan to declare chemical weapons production sites and the whereabouts of munitions and to let the OPCW verify and destroy them, and calls for a ceasefire monitored by an independent international body. Sudan denies the charges, and a Sudanese national committee said in an interim report circulated at an OPCW meeting in July that it had found no evidence.
Why it matters: The resolution places multilateral arms-control verification and the sanctions already imposed by Washington at the centre of the Sudan conflict, at a moment when the African Commission is meeting in Dakar.