With the conflict in Sudan, which began in 2023, on the agenda at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in recent days, a legal case has also been filed before the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the use of chemical weapons and serious violations against civilians. The allegations are directed at four senior leaders affiliated with the Sudanese Armed Forces, including the Chairman of the Sovereign Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
The case, submitted to the ICC by the Sudanese Alliance for Rights (SAR), also namesYasser al-Atta, Shams al-Din al-Kabashi, and Major General Taher Mohammed. The new case at the ICC calls for a comprehensive investigation and the prosecution of those responsible, as well as highlighting concerns over the expanding influence of extremist militias allied with Burhan’s army and the related threat to regional security. Indeed, the case notes that the grave violations alleged against civilians were committed with assistance from extremist groups allied to the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Formal complaints on chemical weapons use and violations against civilians have also been submitted to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. A letter has been sent to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), urging the body to launch an urgent investigation.
The case launched at the ICC follows the breakdown of African Union and IGAD efforts to resolve the Sudan conflict peacefully, as well as refusal to engage during peace efforts in Switzerland in 2024, when General Burhan famously said the Sudanese Armed Forces would keep fighting “even if it takes 100 years” and dismissed any possibility of dialogue. Efforts in 2025 have met with similar reluctance to enter into any peace processes. A meeting took place between Burhan and the US Africa envoy Massad Boulos, yet almost immediately after, Burhan renewed his commitment to the “battle for dignity, to defeat the rebellion, and to make neither compromise nor reconciliation, whatever the cost”. Further peace efforts by the Quad have met with a similar reaction from the Sudanese Armed Forces.
The delegates in New York can have been in no doubt this week about the urgency of the situation in Sudan. The United Nations itself, plus NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders have sounded repeated and increasingly dire warnings about the worsening humanitarian catastrophe. The war in Sudan has killed more than 150,000 people. In a population of more than 50 million, the number of wounded is in the hundreds of thousands. Over 12 million people are displaced and packed into makeshift camps with no schools or medical facilities.Several commentators have remarked that the numbers are becoming so high, they are hard to take in. The case at the ICC is expected to put the spotlight onto the nature of what the Sudanese population is facing: the menace of chemical weapons, and Islamist violence targeted at civilians.
We acknowledge The European Times for the information.
