Global cluster problem 'bigger than thought'
The number of unexploded cluster bombs posing a hazard long after conflicts have ended is far higher than previously estimated, according to a report released today.
The campaign group Handicap International said it analysed data gathered from nine countries most heavily affected by the weapon and found that about 440 million cluster bomblets had been dropped there since 1965.
Based on known failure rates of 5 to 30%, the Brussels-based group estimated that 22-132 million of these devices, also know as submunitions, remain unexploded and can be detonated by the slightest disturbance.
“Given recent failure-rate estimates of the ageing US cluster munitions used by Israel in Lebanon, and the known failure rate of the most prolifically dispensed submunition in history, the BLU-26, these estimates are unquestionably conservative,” the 220-page report said.
Cluster bomblets are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped from aircraft. Some 200 to 600 of the bomblets are typically scattered over an area the size of a football pitch from a single cluster-bomb canister.
They were widely used in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Kosovo, Laos, Lebanon and Vietnam, but other countries are also affected.
Handicap International said it had recorded 5,475 deaths and 7,246 injuries from cluster bombs in 24 countries since 1965.
The vast majority of casualties were civilians, and most were in Laos, Iraq, and Vietnam.
The group is urging countries to join a Norwegian initiative to ban the use of cluster munitions because they overwhelmingly affect civilians, rather than the military.
The United States and Russia, which both hold significant stockpiles, have so far refused to support an outright ban on cluster bombs.
