Kiev returns to denounce the use by Russian troops of the deadly white phosphorus on Ukrainian cities, the battered Mariupol last. If confirmed, it would be a serious violation of international treaties which could also constitute a war crime.
White phosphorus ammunition, widely used in every contemporary theater of war, although not properly considered chemical weapons, is defined illegal by the III Protocol of the ‘Convention on certain conventional weapons’ adopted in 1980 which prohibits or limits the use of conventional weapons considered particularly harmful, likely to cause indiscriminate effects on the civilian population. In other words, white phosphorus is usable against military targets but not against civilians, nor against installations that are too close to residential areas.
On the battlefield this weapon has multiple uses, especially as an illuminant – it is also contained in tracer bullets -, as a cloud of smoke to cover the advance of the troops or as an incendiary bomb, thanks to its ability to reach 815 degrees on contact. with oxygen. The wounds are deadly and often fatal, the flesh burns relentlessly on contact to the bone, if inhaled it causes asphyxiation in some cases.
Discovered in 1669 by the German alchemist Hennig Brandt, who baptized it as ‘bearer of light’ from the Greek, it is believed that the first to use white phosphorus in a military key were the Irish nationalists at the end of the 19th century, who mixing it with the carbon disulfide obtained a fearsome incendiary substance called ‘phenian fire’.
Regular armies began to use it during the First World War, but there is no doubt that ‘Willie Pete’, in the slang of American soldiers, became tragically famous in Vietnam: the fire monster unleashed by phosphorus grenades in contact with oxygen. he was able to annihilate the Vietcong barricaded in the tunnels, a nightmare of every US soldier in Southeast Asia.
Despite the 1980 Convention, white phosphorus will sadly make a comeback in the 1982 Falklands war, used by the British, in the 1994 battle of Grozny in Chechnya, where Russian forces would have used it “massively”, and in that of Falluja which in 2004 opposed the US soldiers to the Iraqi insurgents, and where many years later the consequences will still be recorded, with many malformed children probably due to the use of this weapon.
Other complaints concerned Israel’s Cast Lead operation against Gaza in 2008, Turkish operations in Syria and even ended up involving the Taliban, accused of having used it in at least 44 attacks.
Source: Ansa
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