*** US sanctions on Sudan over alleged chemical weapons use take effect | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

US sanctions on Sudan over alleged chemical weapons use take effect

AFP | Washington

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

US sanctions on Sudan’s government -- imposed over what Washington says was the use by Khartoum’s military of chemical weapons in the country’s bloody civil war last year -- have taken effect.

The sanctions -- which include restrictions on US exports, arms sales and financing to the government in Khartoum -- are to remain in place for at least one year, the US government said in a notice published Friday in the Federal Register.

Assistance to Sudan will be terminated “except for urgent humanitarian assistance and food or other agricultural commodities or products,” it said.

However, certain measures will be partially waived because “it is essential to the national security interests of the United States” to do so, it added.

“The United States calls on theGovernment of Sudan to cease allchemical weapons use and upholdits obligations” under the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty signed by nearlyall countries that prohibits theiruse, the State Department saidlast month when it announcedthe sanctions.

The New York Times reported in January that Sudan’s military had used chemical weaponson at least two occasions in remote areas its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces(RSF).

Citing anonymous US officials,the newspaper said that the weapon appeared to be chlorine gas,which can cause severe respiratory pain and death.