August M
A potent, decades-old chemical may have been used in water cannons during last year’s pro-EU demonstrations in Georgia, deepening controversy around the government’s response to the protests.
According to a BBC investigation former members of Georgia’s riot police say a powerful, little-known chemical may have been loaded into water cannon vehicles during last year’s demonstrations.
Their accounts surfaced as the country was already locked in political turmoil over the government’s decision to halt its EU accession efforts.
The governing party’s announcement, which paused a constitutionally anchored goal of joining the European Union, ignited mass protests in late November 2024.
Those rallies would later become the focus of a widening dispute over public safety, transparency and the conduct of security forces.
Political backdrop
With thousands gathering outside parliament, police responded with pepper spray, CS gas and water cannons.
The Interior Ministry later defended the response, insisting officers acted legally while confronting what it described as violent disorder.
Yet questions about the composition of the water used in those cannons escalated quickly. Civil rights groups, journalists and medical professionals urged the government to clarify what dispersal agents officers had deployed. Officials declined to answer, notes Digi24.ro.
Insider accounts emerge
According to the BBC, chemical weapon exsperts privately indicated that the substance resembled “camite”, a chemical dating back to World War I and believed to have been withdrawn decades ago.
One former armaments specialist told the BBC he had been asked in 2009 to test a similar compound for possible operational use and warned superiors against adopting it after he and his colleagues struggled to breathe during trials.
The BBC reported that this ex-official, now living in Ukraine, recognised comparable symptoms in footage from the 2024 protests and said former colleagues still in Georgia confirmed the substance had remained in circulation.
Protesters’ experiences
Only after these insider claims came to light did a clearer picture of protesters’ symptoms begin to emerge.
Participants told the BBC that the spray caused an intense burning sensation and that attempts to wash it off sometimes made the reaction worse.
According to the BBC, nearly 350 people responded, with many reporting that respiratory trouble, headaches and fatigue persisted for weeks.
His clinical assessments of dozens of participants revealed irregularities in cardiac activity, findings subsequently accepted for publication by Toxicology Reports.
Despite mounting testimony, Georgian authorities dismissed the BBC investigation as unfounded, calling its conclusions “absurd”.
Context and Analysis
Debate over the protest response in Georgia has also drawn attention to broader questions about how riot-control tactics are regulated internationally.
In most European countries, police agencies rely on a narrow set of authorized dispersal tools—typically water cannons, pepper spray and CS gas—each subject to guidelines intended to minimize long-term harm.
These standards generally require authorities to disclose what agents are approved for use, to document deployments, and to ensure that any chemical irritants break down quickly once exposure stops.
Sources: BBC, Digi24.ro
