Sudan's national investigation of the chemical-weapons allegations
May 2025 - July 2026
›This record describes attacks on civilians. Show
Formed by decision of the Transitional Sovereignty Council after the US announcement of May 2025 (Sudan's own statements to the OPCW give the decision as no. 139/2025; the foreign ministry announced the committee in press release 50/25 of 29 May 2025). Sudan told the OPCW Executive Council in March 2026 that the committee is chaired by Ambassador Idris Ismail; that its technical team is drawn from the National Authority for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Federal Ministry of Health (forensic medicine and the national public health laboratory), the military medical services and the General Directorate of Forensic Evidence; that it visited the sites identified to it, took environmental samples, interviewed residents, workers and medical staff and examined medical records; and that it held in-person and virtual meetings with the US side, the last in November 2025, and invited the US to send a technical team. An interim report circulated at the Executive Council's 112th session (7-10 July 2026) concluded, as quoted by Arms Control Today, that the committee 'has not identified any material, technical, or documentary evidence that substantiates the allegations'. No final report was found.
- Response
- United States (EC-112, July 2026): 'domestic bureaucratic mechanisms are not a substitute for treaty compliance and independent verification'; the US 'has not dispatched personnel to Sudan to conduct independent investigations, nor guided any internal investigation'. Sudan's foreign ministry (24 July 2026): the committee 'was not presented as an alternative to international mechanisms'. Mauritania asked in June 2025 how the committee could be impartial when the ministry had already said it 'does not believe' the allegations.
›Research notes
Grade A is for the existence, composition and stated conclusion of the committee, taken from Sudan's own statements to the OPCW. It is not a grade for the correctness of its conclusion. The interim report itself was not found on the OPCW public site. The decision number appears as 139/2025 in two OCR-read Sudanese statements and with a garbled number in a third; check against the Arabic originals. Sources marked summary_only were read through an automated page summary; quotations from them should be checked against the page before publication.
- 1Sudan, oral briefing on the work of the National Committee, agenda item 6(f), EC-111 (Arabic scan, read by OCR) · opcw.org · Mar 2026
- 2Sudan, national statement to EC-109 (Arabic scan, read by OCR) · opcw.org · Jul 2025
- 3Sudan, statement on agenda item 6(f), EC-110 (Arabic scan, read by OCR) · opcw.org · Oct 2025
- 4Mauritania, Note Verbale REC 233/2025/1446 requesting clarification from Sudan under Article IX(4) (Arabic with OPCW English translation) · opcw.org · 4 Jun 2025
- 5Arms Control Today, 'U.S. Doubles Down on Alleged Sudanese Chemical Weapons Use' · armscontrol.org · Sep 2026read via summary
- 6United States, statement on agenda item 6(e) (Sudan), EC-112 · opcw.org · Jul 2026
- 7Asharq Al-Awsat, 'Sudan opens the door to an international investigation in the chemical weapons file' · aawsat.com · 24 Jul 2026read via summary