The overwhelming majority of people killed or maimed by cluster bombs are civilians and a significant number of those are children, an unprecedented study into the lasting impact of the controversial weapons system published today shows.
Research in 24 countries revealed more than 11 000 confirmed casualties of cluster munitions. Extrapolated, the total figure could be as high as 100 000, says Handicap International, the charity which carried out the survey.
The full extent of the damage caused by unexploded ”bomblets” scattered by the weapons will probably never be known, it says. Ninety-eight percent of the casualties it found were civilian. Of the 11 044 cases it discovered, 3 830 people were killed and the remainder injured.
Cluster bombs have been used in most major conflicts since the Vietnam war. Nato aircraft dropped them over civilian areas during the Kosovo conflict, British forces fired Israeli-made cluster weapons around Basra during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Israelis fired them at Lebanon this summer when Hezbollah guerrillas launched Chinese-made cluster weapons against six Israeli locations, according to Human Rights Watch.
”Cluster submunitions incidents involve more people at a time, are more fatal, and result in more multiple injuries, than mines,” Friday’s study says. It points out that military personnel in forces which fire cluster weapons themselves regard areas the submunitions land as dangerous minefields.
”Cluster munitions are wide-surface weapons contaminating more than the military target; they were used in indiscriminately high quantities, as in Laos; they were often used near civilian areas, as in Afghanistan; and they sometimes explicitly targeted civilian targets as in Chechnya,” says the report.
In parts of south-east Asia unexploded cluster munitions continue to cause significant casualties more than 30 years after they were used by attackers, says the report entitled Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions.
In some areas of Iraq, it says, casualties from unexploded cluster submunitions, account for between 75% and 80% of all casualties.
It was known from the outset, the study notes, that the most widely used submunition in the conflict in south-east Asia, the BLU-26, had a failure rate of 26% under optimal test conditions. One of the cluster submunitions in the Israeli stockpile used in Lebanon this summer was of the same type and age as those used more than 30 years ago in south-east Asia, according to Handicap International. The charity operates in 60 countries in the fields of rehabilitation, inclusion of disabled people, and disability prevention.
It says the failure rate of cluster submunitions has been far above the manufacturer specifications — as high as 80% by some estimates. The vast majority of casualties occurred when people were carrying out their normal daily activities such as farming or tending animals. In Lebanon most casualties happened near the home when people were inspecting bomb damage, trying to salvage crops or just walking around.
Over 80% of the casualties from cluster weapons were men. In Kosovo and Cambodia boys under 18 were the largest single casualty group, and in Afghanistan boys represented more than half of the victims of unexploded submunitions.
More than 2 000 people in Iraq were confirmed casualties of cluster submunitions between 1991 and this year, according to the report, which says the figures are far from complete.
Cluster bombs affect ”young people going about their normal daily affairs and trying to make a living, families returning to their homes after a conflict, children just playing, as well as peacekeepers and those clearing failed submunitions to make communities safe,” said Samantha Rennie, director of Handicap International UK. – Guardian Unlimited Â