On this day in 1998, Bill Clinton committed a major act of terrorism by ordering a cruise missile attack on Sudan’s Al Shifa factory, which produced 90% of the country’s pharmaceuticals. The loss of the factory resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands from treatable diseases.

The US claimed the plant produced WMDs & was connected to Osama bin Laden, but neither was true. When it became clear the plant only produced medicine, the US blocked a UN inquiry into the incident. The US has never apologized or paid compensation for the attack.

The plant had specialized in anti-malaria, tuberculosis treatments & veterinary medicines. A report by a former German ambassador to Sudan stated that “several tens of thousands” were likely killed due to preventable diseases due to the loss of the plant. http://hir.harvard.edu/article/?a=909 

In 1998, Sudan was heavily sanctioned & poor, thus it was unable to import expensive replacement drugs to compensate for the destroyed Al Shifa plant, which provided vital medicines at an inexpensive price. In Sudan, the incident is widely described as an act of terror.

Wol Bol was guarding the factory when it was stuck by the US & was left unconscious for 3 months by the blast, his entire body was burned in the blast & his broken legs have left him crippled. Fadil Reheima, also on duty that night, was left deaf and unable to speak.

The CIA claimed that “soil samples taken outside the plant contained a substance known as Empta, a component of nerve gas VX.” However, the substance is also used in the production of pesticides and fungicides used in agricultural products.

British engineer, Thomas Carnaffin, who worked as a technical manager at the plant from 1992 and 1996, stated that the plant was neither heavily guarded nor secret, and that he never witnessed anything remotely resembling chemical weapons production.

A Human Rights Watch report stated that the bombing effectively stopped relief efforts aimed at supplying food to areas of Sudan gripped by famine.

The factory’s owners sued the US in an attempt to receive compensation, but the court dismissed their suit, ruling “the enemy target of military force” has no right to compensation for “the destruction of property designated by the President as enemy war-making property.”

In the years since the attack, American officials have quietly acknowledged the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike on the Shifa plant was “not as solid as first portrayed”. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/world/africa/look-at-the-place-sudan-says-say-sorry-but-us-wont.html

In the two decades since the attack, the US has provided neither an apology nor compensation.