Medical expert reports use of chemical weapons in Iran-Iraq war

UN Chronicle, May, 1985

Chemical weapons were used during March in the Iran-Iraq war, according to a report of 8 April by Dr. Manuel Dominguez, a medical specialist appointed by Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar "to examine Iranian patients hospitalized in Europe, allegedly as a result of the use of such weapons".

The report (S/17127) said yperite, or bis-(2-chloroethyl) sulfide, had been used, "affecting Iranian soldiers". It added that it was possible that hydrocyanic gas had been used, alone or in combination with ypertie, generally known as "mustard gas". The report stated that the attacks had been made by means of bombs dropped from aircraft, according to the statements of most patients.

Dr. Dominguez had visited the Bijloke Hospital in Ghent, Belgium; the Elisabeth-Krankenhaus in Recklinghausen, Federal Republic of Germany; and the St. John-St. Elizabeth and Wellington hospitals in London, United Kingdom, from 1 to 5 April.

In a statement read out on behalf of Security Council members at a Council meeting on 25 April, Council President Javier Arias Stella (Peru) said Council members were "appalled that chemical weapons have been used against Iranian soldiers" during March in the Iran-Iraq war, as concluded in the report of the medical specialist. They "strongly condemn renewed use of chemical weapons in the conflict and any possible future use of such weapons".

The statement, issued separately as document S/17130, said Council members again urged the strict observance of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, "according to which the use in war of chemical weapons is probihited and has been justly condemned by the world community". They condemned all violations of international humanitarian law and urged both parties to observe the generally recognized principles and rules of international humanitarian law which were applicable to armed conflicts and their "obligations under international conventions designed to prevent or alleviate the human suffering of warfare". At the same time, they urged a cessation of hostilities and remained convinced that a "prompt, comprehensive, just and honourable settlement acceptable to both sides is essential and in the interest of international peace and security".

According to the statement, Council members expressed their full appreciation and support to the Secretary-General for his report to the Council on his visit to Iran and Iraq from 7 to 9 April (S/17097). They were ready to issue "at the appropriate moment" an invitation to both parties to take part in a renewed examination of all aspects of the conflict. They called on the parties to co-operate with the Council and with the Secretary-General in their efforts to restore peace to the peoples of Iran and Iraq.

Specialist's report

In forwarding Dr. Dominguez's report to the Council President, the Secretary-General said his purpose in dispatching the medical specialist was to "obtain an authoritative and independent opinion on the information coming from the hospital centres concerned". He recalled that Dr. Dominguez, who was a colonel in the Spanish Army Medical Corps, a specialist in atomic, biological and chemical weapons, and professor of preventive medicine at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, was a member of the team of specialists which had visited Iran in March 1984 and found evidence of the use of chemical weapons. (For details on that report (S/16433) see UN Chronicle, 1984, No. 3.)

Dr. Dominguez said his report was based on a direct clinical study of the patients admitted to the various hospitals, clinical records supplied by the physicians responsible for the patients, conversations with those physicians, study of the analyses made and conversations held with the patients through interpreters furnished in London by the Iranian Embassy and in Recklinghausen by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany. He pointed out that the patients could not state the precise date of the attack, "in view of the elapsed time and the difference in calendars". They also had difficulty in precisely locating the grographical site at which they had been hurt.

He said he had examined six patients at the St. John-St. Elizabeth Hospital, one at Wellington Hospital, three in Ghent and eight in Recklinghausen. In addition, the St. John-St. Elizabeth Hospital had another patient who had not been present and who apparently had not been seriously affected, and also a cadaver which he had not been able to examine.

The six patients in London, the three in Ghent and six of the patients in Recklinghausen had exhibited a similar set of symptoms which had varied only in the degree and extent of the lesions, Dr. Dominguez said. In all cases the time elapsed between the date of the attack and that of observation had been about 25 days. After describing in detail the patients' symptoms and signs, he stated that all of those symptoms and signs had been consistent with those observed by the specialists in the report prepared by the commission appointed in March 1984 by the Secretary-General. "From the clinical data, from the finding of yperite in the urine of the patient Moharram Firouzi, and from the statement by some patients that they had smelled garlic at the time of the attack, it may be concluded that 15 of the patients studied had been the victims of an attack with bis-(2-chloroethyl), or yperite."