The weapons are dangerous for the population even long after the end of the war.
(Photo: IMAGO/NurPhoto)
Geneva Cluster munitions are largely banned internationally – and yet the Russian army uses them in their campaign in Ukraine. The victims of these weapons are mainly civilians, stressed the director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, Robin Geiss, on Thursday in Geneva at the presentation of a report by aid and human rights organizations. Cluster munitions cannot be used precisely, only hitting military targets is hardly possible.
According to the “Cluster Bomb Monitor” of the aid organization Handicap International, at least 689 civilians were victims of such explosive devices in Ukraine in the first half of 2022. Of them, 215 died while 474 suffered injuries and mutilations. However, the number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher, and precise recording is impossible due to the turmoil of war. According to the report, the munitions also damaged a number of homes, schools, hospitals and other civilian buildings in the country that Russian troops invaded on February 24.
Almost all attacks in Ukraine were carried out by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops. According to Handicap International, “Russian forces carried out hundreds of attacks”. According to Mary Wareham, disarmament expert at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Ukrainian units also used cluster bombs in at least two cases.
Cluster bombs are containers launched from the ground or dropped from the air. The containers open and hundreds of small bombs scatter in areas that can be dozens of football fields in size. According to the Federal Foreign Office, cluster munitions are particularly dangerous because “a significant percentage of the submunitions do not detonate, but remain on site as duds and endanger the population”.
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The submunitions are difficult to find because of their small size. Small touches trigger detonations. The bombs thus threaten civilians not only during the deployment, but also “long after the end of a military conflict”.
Cluster munitions primarily affect the civilian population in Ukraine.
(Photo: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire)
According to the research that has now been published by the various organizations, in 2022 Ukraine was the only theater of war in the world where parties fought with cluster bombs. For the first time in a decade, the authors had not recorded any reports of victims of cluster munition attacks in 2021.
Russia and Ukraine have not signed a treaty against cluster bombs
Eva Maria Fischer of Handicap International sharply criticized the Russian army: “The continued and repeated use of cluster munitions in Ukraine shows a lack of consideration for the civilian population and, in some cases, a deliberate intention to hit them,” she said. All states should sign up to the international treaty banning cluster bombs. This “barbaric weapon” must finally disappear from the theaters of war.
>> Read here: Military expert on the suffering of Ukrainians: “These weapons have terrible consequences”
But neither Russia nor Ukraine have signed the so-called Oslo Convention. This prohibits using, storing, trading or producing cluster bombs. The USA, China and other military powers also do not want to bow to the pact.
The agreement entered into force in August 2010. To date, 123 states have signed the treaty. Regardless of the treaty, premeditated attacks by any weapon against civilians in a war count as war crimes.
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