The United States State Department announced on Friday new sanctions against the Sudanese government, accusing it of deploying chemical weapons last year in its ongoing conflict with rival paramilitaries.
This accusation adds to widespread allegations of war crimes in the conflict, which began in April 2023, and follows a US determination in January that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had committed genocide.
In May, the State Department informed Congress of its finding that “the Government of Sudan used chemical weapons in 2024,” a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Khartoum ratified in 1999.
While Washington did not provide specific details on the timing or location of these alleged chemical attacks, Sudan’s army-aligned government immediately denied the accusations, labelling them “baseless” and “political blackmail.”
The new US sanctions, which were initially slated to take effect on June 6, will restrict US exports and financing to Sudan.
However, urgent humanitarian aid will be exempt, a crucial consideration given that nearly 25 million people in Sudan are facing severe food insecurity in what is described as the world’s largest hunger crisis.
This is not the first time Sudan’s army has faced such allegations. In January, The New York Times reported that the Sudanese army had used chemical weapons at least twice in the war, citing four anonymous senior US officials who claimed chlorine was the agent used, with the direct approval of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
US sanctions Sudan for alleged chemical weapons use.
Credit: Reuters
In 2016, an Amnesty International investigation also accused the army (then allied with the RSF) of using chemical weapons on civilians in Darfur, which Khartoum denied.
Earlier, in 1998, the US claimed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum was producing chemical components for Al-Qaeda, leading to its destruction in a missile attack.
Relations between the US and Sudan have been historically strained, particularly under the rule of Omar al-Bashir, whose military regime was accused of supporting terrorism.
US sanctions imposed in the early 1990s were tightened in 2006 due to genocide accusations in Darfur, carried out by the RSF’s predecessor militia, the Janjaweed.
Following Bashir’s ousting in 2019, the US began lifting sanctions and removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, some sanctions were reintroduced after a 2021 coup led by Burhan and his then-deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (Hemeti), before their power struggle erupted into full-scale war in April 2023.
By January 2025, both Burhan and Daglo were personally sanctioned by the US. Mediation efforts, including those by the Biden administration, have repeatedly failed to secure a ceasefire.
The impact of sanctions on Sudanese civilians has historically been significant. Both Burhan’s and Hemeti’s factions accumulated considerable wealth under previous sanctions regimes by developing transnational financial networks, while the country remained underdeveloped.
Currently, Africa’s third-largest country faces what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with over 10 million internally displaced people and famine already declared in some areas.
The US was Sudan’s largest donor in 2024, contributing 44.4 per cent of the UN’s $2 billion humanitarian response plan.
However, following US President Donald Trump’s suspension of most foreign aid, the US contribution has dropped by nearly 80 per cent. In 2024, US exports to Sudan were valued at $56.6 million.
