Thick smoke rises vertically into the sky, forming a circle above it, after munitions were fired by an Antonov aircraft belonging to the army in Port Sudan at the Umm Qarfah area in Sudan’s North Kordofan State a week ago.

In a widely circulated video clip, local residents said the projectiles dropped by the aircraft caused thick yellow smoke to billow after striking the ground. They expressed suspicions that the munitions may have contained chemical weapons.

In this context, Taha Abu Bakr, a leader of the Partners for Change and Future Alliance, confirmed that “the army is using internationally banned chemical weapons against civilians,” noting that the most recent documented cases occurred in the Umm Qarfah area of North Kordofan State “the day before yesterday.”

In press statements published yesterday, Thursday, Abu Bakr said: “The army of the Islamists did not content itself with rejecting any independent international investigation committee; it continues, with utter recklessness, to use chemical weapons against unarmed civilians.” He stressed that “chemical gas does not distinguish between one person and another, nor does it recognize geographic borders,” warning that its effects reach “the land, human beings, animals, and plants, and will extend to future generations.”

Abu Bakr called on the international community to “act immediately and with greater seriousness,” and urged the people of Kordofan and Darfur, both at home and abroad, to “rise up and raise their voices loudly in confronting the Islamists and their destructive campaign.” He continued: “This is a matter of life or death for entire communities… and silence is complicity.”

Dangerous Escalation                                                                        

Writer Osama Ahmed Al-Mustafa said that “what occurred in the Umm Qarfah area of North Kordofan State, according to the circulated video footage and residents’ testimonies, raises an extremely serious suspicion regarding the nature of the munitions dropped by an Antonov aircraft, after thick yellow smoke rose from the site where they landed.”

He added that “although these facts alone are insufficient to prove the use of chemical weapons, they legally and morally require the opening of an urgent and independent international investigation, because mere suspicion of the use of internationally banned means of warfare is an issue that cannot be ignored or downplayed.”

He stressed that “international law is not a political statement that can be disregarded, nor a diplomatic recommendation open to negotiation, but rather a binding legal system that emerged over the ruins of millions of victims who suffocated from toxic gases in major wars. That is why the Chemical Weapons Convention was established—to close the door permanently on the use of such means and to make any suspicion of their use subject to investigation and accountability, not denial or derision.”

He added: “If the allegations concerning what happened in Umm Qarfah are proven true, then the authorities in Port Sudan will not merely have committed a legal violation; they will have dealt a devastating blow to what remains of the international community’s confidence in their ability to respect the laws of war.” He noted that “an authority that bets on escaping accountability may win a media round, but it loses the battle of history. International laws do not lapse with time, and war crimes, once established through evidence and judicial procedures, continue to pursue their perpetrators, because international justice, however slow, does not recognize forgetfulness.”

New U.S. Sanctions

These allegations came as new U.S. sanctions entered into force on July 20, 2026, after Washington concluded that the Sudanese army had used chemical weapons during 2024.

The U.S. State Department said that Washington had determined that the Sudanese authorities had failed to fulfill the obligations stipulated under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

It noted that the committee formed by army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to investigate the allegations could not replace the independent verification mechanism of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. It also affirmed that Port Sudan was required to cooperate with the organization and take practical steps to return to compliance with the Convention.

The new sanctions include U.S. opposition to the provision of loans or financial and technical assistance to the Port Sudan government by international financial institutions, with the exception of humanitarian assistance. They also impose restrictions on the export of most U.S. goods and technologies to Sudan, adopt a stricter policy on the granting of export and re-export licenses, and impose restrictions on airlines under the control of the Sudanese government.

A Troubling Situation on the Ground

These developments come after rights organizations documented, in recent weeks, airstrikes targeting the Jabra al-Sheikh area in North Kordofan using barrel bombs dropped from military transport aircraft. The attacks resulted in civilian deaths and injuries and prompted warnings of a rise in indiscriminate attacks.

In a statement on June 30, 2026, the Emergency Lawyers Group said that “an army aircraft dropped barrel bombs on the areas of Umm Dubaib and al-Zaraf, north of the Umm Badr locality in North Kordofan State, injuring dozens of civilians, including children and herders, in the Umm Dubaib area while they were near a water source, in addition to the deaths of large numbers of livestock.” It noted that “the bombardment also targeted the al-Zaraf area, one of the artisanal mining areas, exposing civilians working there to direct danger.”

According to the group, the two areas “were completely devoid of any military presence at the time of the attack and were used exclusively for civilian purposes, including a water source and an artisanal mining area.” It pointed out that “this attack comes as a continuation of the indiscriminate airstrikes carried out by the army against civilian areas in North Kordofan since October 2023. These attacks have taken multiple forms, including bombardment with barrel bombs and drones, repeatedly claiming civilian lives and causing injuries, in addition to destroying civilian property and undermining livelihoods, reflecting a continuing pattern of attacks that fail to distinguish between military targets and civilian objects.”

An Impending Campaign of Ethnic Cleansing?

What is happening in Kordofan has not stopped there. Step News Agency reported that the al-Bara bin Malik Battalion—linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and allied with the Sudanese army, and designated by the United States as a terrorist organization—had brought weapons described as “banned” into the city of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan State.

Amid growing concerns for civilian safety as a result of the battalion’s use of civilian and educational facilities, reports said that field arrangements and redeployments included converting the buildings of the College of Education in the al-Radeef neighborhood and facilities belonging to the University of Kordofan, as well as locations in the city’s western neighborhoods, into positions for the deployment and storage of this equipment. According to the same source, this threatens residents’ lives amid continuing security tensions in the area.

Between the concentrated media campaign surrounding El Obeid and the promotion of an imminent attack, media outlets assert that these developments are merely a cover for massive military mobilization in the areas of “Jabra al-Sheikh” and “Rahaid al-Nuba.”

According to a report by the “Sudanese Human Rights Organization” issued on July 15, 2026, the army imposed strict checkpoints at the entrances and exits of El Obeid, where more than 45 cases of assaults on civilians attempting to leave were documented.

Observers maintain that what is happening is far more dangerous, warning of a major escalation after three years of war, at a time when Sudan is experiencing one of the largest humanitarian crises in its modern history—and one of the largest in the world.