Sudanese factory destroyed by US now a shrine
President Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike on the pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998; the Sudanese still haven't forgotten.
Above, a Sudanese man looks at the ruins of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in the yellow glow of a sandstorm in Khartoum, Sudan. US cruise missiles destroyed the plant – which the US suspected of making chemical weapons – 14 years ago. Left: A label for veterinary medicine lies in the ruins of the factory
Scott Peterson/TCSM/Getty Images
Khartoum, Sudan
Fourteen years after American cruise missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, its ruins have been left untouched as a shrine that still rankles Sudanese.
The precision strike did its work: The buildings are pulverized, a tangle of broken concrete and iron bars; thousands of brown bottles of veterinary and other medicines lie scattered, the whole scene stained by endless sun and sandstorms.
The Aug. 20, 1998, attack was ordered by President Bill Clinton, simultaneously with missile strikes against training camps run by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, to retaliate for the dual bombings two weeks earlier at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Myths continue to abound, on both sides, about a military strike that wiped out Sudan's largest pharmaceutical facility, a trophy plant that specialized in anti-malaria medicines, antibiotics, and lifesaving veterinary goods – and where the British ambassador was among the dignitaries at the 1996 opening.
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