A Sudanese legal advocacy group on Sunday accused General al-Burhan’s army (SAF) of using internationally banned chemical agents during recent air operations over Nyala, the South Darfur city that has become the administrative base of the “Founding (TASIS) Government.”
In a report, the Emergency Lawyers group said evidence it gathered indicates SAF aircraft turned areas around Nyala into “a balloon of contamination,” alleging the use of chlorine gas led to widespread choking, shortness of breath, chest infections, asthma flare-ups and skin peeling.
Testimonies collected by the group described a spike in unusual inflammatory conditions among Nyala residents, alongside a reported increase in miscarriages and fetal abnormalities.
A local physician told the group that hospitals in the city are receiving daily cases suspected of chemical exposure. “As suspicions mounted, medical staff at the Turkish and Italian hospitals began ordering laboratory checks on patients’ clothing,” the doctor said, adding that lab reports detected traces of chlorine on garments from people admitted immediately after bombardments.
Rihab Mubarak, a member of the Emergency Lawyers and the report’s author, said the accounts point to “grave breaches amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity,” alleging the SAF used lethal, internationally prohibited weapons against a wide civilian population inside the city.
Specialists have been linking a range of environmental and public-health anomalies since early 2025 to possible chemical contamination in parts of Sudan, particularly Khartoum, central regions and North Darfur.
In May, the United States said it had credible evidence the SAF used chemical weapons during the conflict that began in April 2023. In January, the New York Times cited four senior U.S. officials as saying the SAF deployed chemical weapons at least twice, including in remote areas; two officials told the paper the agents included chlorine, which can harm people, animals and water sources.
Separately, a prior Sky News Arabia investigation quoted a North Darfur official as saying strange phenomena followed dozens of SAF airstrikes around Kuma and Mellit—about 130 sorties over recent months—including severely burned and distorted bodies, unusual livestock deaths, and changes in soil and water color. The official said videos, photos, survivor testimony, soil and water samples, and human and animal remains had been collected as evidence.
