Military equipment made in France is being used in Sudan in “a violation of the UN arms embargo” on the Darfur region, Amnesty International has said.
As Day.Az reports with reference to the American publication The Defense Post, armored personnel carriers (APCs) supplied by the United Arab Emirates and spotted by Amnesty in Sudan were equipped with Galix defense systems manufactured in France by KNDS and Lacroix.
“Our research shows that weapons designed and manufactured in France are being actively used on the battlefield in Sudan,” said Amnesty Secretary General Agnès callamard.
Fighting has intensified in Sudan’s civil war in recent weeks, pitting the country’s army under the command of Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the paramilitary Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) under the command of General Muhammad Hamdan Daghlo.
Both sides are accused of war crimes and more than 11 million peopel have been forced from their homes in what the UN calls the world’s worst displacement crisis.
However, the conflict in Sudan is overshadowed internationally by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Amnesty reports that the French Galix system was seen installed on Nimr Ajban armored personnel carriers supplied by the Emirates to the RRF, and also provides photographs of destroyed vehicles equipped with the system.
Galix consists of sensors connected to a battery of launchers that can be loaded with munitions such as smoke bombs, decoys or projectiles, Lacroix says on its website.
“The Galix complex is designed not only for self-defense (passive action), but also for the active neutralization of enemy personnel,” the company says.
“Any use of (Galix) in Darfur would be a clear violation of the UN arms embargo,” Callamard said, calling on Paris to ”promptly stop supplying this system to the UAE.”
Galix is installed on more than 5,000 military vehicles worldwide, including some used by the French Army.
France’s General Secretariat of National Defense and Security (SGDSN), which controls arms exports, told AFP it had not seen the Amnesty report and declined to comment.
The UN arms embargo has been in effect on Sudan’s Darfur region since 2004.
amnesty called for the ban to be extended to the entire country.
“If France cannot guarantee through export controls, including end-user certification, that weapons will not be re-exported to Sudan, it should not authorize exports to countries such as the UAE,” Amnesty concluded.