Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Amnesty International's Kate Allen explains the evidence for the chemical weapons claim

'Brutality'

The human rights group's eight-month investigation uncovered "scorched earth, mass rapes, killings and bombs" in Jebel Marra, a remote region of Darfur. The alleged chemical attacks, believed to have killed up to 250 people, mostly children, represent a “new low” in the catalogue of serious abuses perpetrated by government forces in the region, said the human rights group. Using satellite imagery, more than 200 in-depth interviews with survivors, and expert analysis of dozens of images showing babies and young children with terrible injuries, Amnesty International says its investigation indicates that at least 30 likely chemical attacks have taken place in the Jebel Marra since January 2016, with the most recent being September 9. But Amnesty said satellite images showed 171 villages had been destroyed or damaged in the last eight months alone, part of a large-scale military offensive launched in January against the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), which the government accuses of ambushing military convoys and attacking civilians. Amnesty's crisis research director Tirana Hassan said tens of thousands of people had been driven from their homes since the air and ground campaign began in January in Jebel Marra -- the homeland of the ethnic Fur tribe. The court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir in 2009 for crimes against humanity and war crimes and added genocide to the charges against him in 2010. A recent United Nations report, seen Tuesday by The Associated Press, says the Sudanese government continues to violate sanctions imposed by the Security Council over their actions in Darfur. "The images and videos we have seen in the course of our research are truly shocking; in one a young child is screaming with pain before dying; many photos show young children covered in lesions and blisters. Some were unable to breath and vomiting blood,” said Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s Director of Crisis Research. There are no other armed actors in the area with any air force [capable of these attacks].”

Amnesty International said it had shared all of its video, photographic and testimonial evidence with two independent chemical weapons experts, and said both concluded that the injuries shown could not have been produced by conventional weapons.
Amnesty International say dozens of children in Darfur are among more than 200 people estimated to have been killed by Sudan government chemical weapons since January.