Factfile: Cluster bombs

A cluster bomb, containing more than 600 bomblets, that was dropped
by an Israeli aircraft during the 2006 Lebanon war [ courtesy: File: AP]

• Cluster bombs are containers holding multiple bomblets or submunitions.
• They are fired into the air or dropped and break in mid-air. They have the potential to spread hundreds of bomblets over large areas - covering areas as large as several football fields.
• Many of the munitions fail to work properly on release and remain a threat to people long after they are fired.
• About 60 per cent of the people injured by cluster bombs are not involved in conflict activities.
• A third of recorded cluster munitions casualties are children.
• At least 14 countries have used cluster bombs, including France, the Netherlands, Russia, the UK, the US and Saudi Arabia.
• Billions of cluster bombs are held by about 76 nations. Thirty-four states have produced the weapon.
• Cluster bombs were first used by German and Soviet Union forces in the second world war.
• The US used significant numbers of the munitions in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam during the 1970s.
• More recently, Russia has used the weapon in Chechnya and the Sudanese government employed them during their civil war. Israel used them, and (Hezbollah was accused of using them - malafide statement), during the Lebanon war in 2006.
• The weapon caused more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon system.

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Source: Cluster Munitions Coalition

courtesy al jazeera