A hundred nations endorsed a treaty signed in 2008 to ban Cluster Bombs, responsible for killing and maiming thousands, but powerful arms producers including the United States, Russia and China remain outside the pact.
The US will announce this Friday a new arms package for Ukraine that will include this type of cluster bomb, according to official sources confirmed to Reuters and CNN. But,what do we know about this type of weapon?
1. What is it?
A cluster bomb, or cluster munition, is a weapon that contains multiple explosive submunitions. Dropped from an aircraft or fired from the ground, they are designed to open up in midair, releasing submunitions that can cover an area the size of several football fields.
Anyone in that area is very likely to be killed or seriously injured. Many minibombs do not detonate immediately and, like landmines, can maim and kill years later.
2. When and where have they been used?
The sovietic Union first used cluster bombs in 1943 against Nazi troops.
Between 1964 and 1973, the US military dropped approximately 260 million cluster munitions in Laos. Fewer than 400,000 have been cleaned up so far, a meager 0.47 percent, and at least 11,000 people have died.
At least 15 countries have used cluster bombs, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, Israel, Morocco, the Netherlands, Britain, Russia and the United States. A small number of non-state armed groups have used them.
Cluster bombs are used extensively in the Gulf WarChechnya, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The UN estimated that Israel used up to 4 million submunitions in Lebanon during a 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas, which also fired more than 100 cluster munitions rockets into northern Israel.
3. Deadly Inheritance
One third of all victims of registered cluster munitions are children. Sixty percent of the victims of cluster bombs are people injured while carrying out daily activities.
4. Reservations
Some 76 countries store thousands of million submunitions. A total of 34 states are known to have produced over 210 different types.
Related news
In March 2007, Belgium became the first country to criminalize investing in companies that manufacture cluster bombs
Russia used various types of cluster munitions, both air-delivered and ground-delivered, at various locations in Georgia’s Gori district in 2008. Georgia also used cluster munitions in the August 2008 conflict with Russia.