Ethiopia accused of using white phosphorus bombs in US-backed occupation of Somalia
Brian Smith
13 August 2007
A new report by United Nations arms monitors accuses Ethiopia’s army of using illegal white phosphorus bombs during the US-backed occupation of Somalia.
The report was compiled by a UN panel of independent experts and analysts and was delivered to the UN Security Council at the end of July. It covers the period from November 2006 to late June 2007.
Residents reportedly said that the bombs literally melted people. The report’s analysts said this was not an isolated incident.
The Ethiopian government denied the accusation, calling it “baseless.” But the UN monitors provided bomb scene photographs and soil sample evidence indicating that the soil at the impact area had 117 times the normal amount of phosphorus.
White phosphorus is particularly dangerous to exposed people because it continues to burn unless deprived of oxygen or until it is completely consumed, in some cases burning right down to the bone. Phosphorus burns carry a greater risk of mortality than other forms of burns due to the absorption of phosphorus into the body, resulting in liver, heart and kidney damage, and in some cases multi-organ failure.
Its use by the US occupying forces against enemy areas in Fallujah, Iraq, was reported as early as April 2004. The US military denied this for 18 months until November 2005, when Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Venable confirmed to the BBC that white phosphorus had been used as an antipersonnel weapon, and was quoted stating, “Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants” (see “New revelations of US military use of white phosphorus in Iraq”).
During last year’s Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, Israel stated that it had used phosphorus shells “against military targets in open ground” in south Lebanon. However, several sources reported that they had seen Lebanese civilians with injuries characteristic of phosphorus.
The use of white phosphorus in civilian areas or as an anti-personnel incendiary is illegal and was banned (by signatory countries) in the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol III. The United States, aware of the chemical’s usefulness from its experiences in Korea and Vietnam, opted out of signing.
The US launched at least two air strikes in the south of Somalia during the invasion’s aftermath, devastating coastal towns and pastoralist camps on the Kenyan border, and killing 31 civilians near Afmadow.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/08/ethi-a13.html
