EU weapons cause carnage in brutal African conflict

Weapons from the European Union are fuelling one of the world’s most deadly civil wars, an investigation has found.

A four-year forensic study into arms supplies to South Sudan concludes that despite an embargo, weapons from Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia have been channelled into the five-year conflict which has killed around 400,000 people.

The war has created Africa’s worst migration crisis, with an estimated 2.5 million people fleeing South Sudan and two million displaced inside.

Thousands of assault rifles and millions of ammunition rounds from EU states have reached the war. The EU backs a peace process and is one of the biggest aid donors to South Sudan.

The 105-page report published today by Conflict Armament Research (CAR), says Uganda – a key sponsor of the peace process – was the main conduit for the arms, with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and its allies obtaining repeated shipments from Bulgaria through Uganda during 2014 and 2015, despite the EU embargo.

A paper trail of government correspondence and commercial documents gathered by CAR shows how the South Sudanese government arranged for Uganda to provide certificates declaring the arms were for Ugandan troops.

The report finds no evidence that Bulgarian, Romanian or Slovak exporters, or their governments, knew the arms’ real destination. However, it highlights the ease with which restrictions can be flouted and the lax oversight of so-called end-user assurances.

“CAR’s documentation provides the first physical confirmation that items exported by these European states since 2014 are currently in service with EU-embargoed forces in Sudan and South Sudan,” the report concludes.

“CAR has obtained evidence that Uganda procured some of this material specifically on behalf of the government of South Sudan.”

The SPLA also procured a US military jet and Austrian-made spy plane via a network of US and Ugandan companies – controlled by British, Israeli, Ugandan and US nationals. While the original suppliers of the aircraft and their governments were apparently unaware of their final destination, at least one of the network’s companies had direct contact with the South Sudanese, the report found.

James Bevan, CAR’s executive director, said the organisation had produced “a forensic picture of how prohibitions on arms transfers to the warring parties have failed”.

CAR found that most ammunition in the war had come from China, some legally and some illicitly.

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