Policy

The Republic of Sudan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. 

In August 2010, during an event in Khartoum to celebrate the convention’s entry into force, Sudan’s State Minister to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Dr. Mutrif Siddiq, said that Sudan would join before the convention’s First Meeting of States Parties in November 2010.[1]

In April 2010, during a celebration of UN Mine Action Day, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Sudan, General Mohamed Abd-al-Qadir, stated that Sudan was ready to join the convention.[2]

In March 2010, a government official told the CMC that relevant governmental agencies were considering Sudan’s position on joining the convention and a decision was expected after the April 2010 presidential and parliamentary elections.[3]

In December 2009, Sudan’s high-level delegation to the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty told campaigners that Sudan would likely join the Convention on Cluster Munitions eventually, but had become reluctant to do so since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant in March 2009 for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.[4]

Sudan has shown an interest in the work of the convention in 2009 and 2010. It participated in the International Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Santiago, Chile in June 2010, as well as the Africa Regional Conference on the Universalization and Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Pretoria, South Africa in March 2010. It did not make a statement at either of these meetings. 

Sudan participated in the Oslo Process that produced the convention from December 2007 onwards. It joined the consensus adoption of the convention at the conclusion of the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008. Sudan also endorsed the Livingstone Declaration calling for a comprehensive treaty with a prohibition that should be “total and immediate.”[5]  

Sudan attended the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008 as an observer, where it stated its commitment to the principles of the convention and its intent to sign as soon as possible, once logistical and national measures had been completed.[6]

Sudan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Sudan signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) on 10 April 1981, but has never ratified the convention or its protocols.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Sudan has used cluster munitions in the past. It imported cluster munitions from a number of countries, but the current status of its stockpile is uncertain.

On 1 April 2010, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Sudan stated that Sudan does not possess cluster munitions.[7]

Sudanese government forces sporadically used air-dropped cluster munitions, including Chilean made PM-1 submunitions, in Southern Sudan between 1995 and 2000.[8] Landmine Action photographed a Rockeye-type cluster bomb with Chinese-language external markings in Yei in October 2006. Additionally, clearance personnel in Sudan have identified a variety of submunitions, including the Spanish-manufactured HESPIN 21, United States-produced M42 and Mk118 (Rockeye), and Soviet-manufactured PTAB-1.5.[9]

Jane’s Information Group reports that KMG-U dispensers which deploy submunitions are in service with the country’s air force.[10]

Sudan is not believed to have produced or exported cluster munitions.