Civilians accounted for 99 per cent of all cluster munition-caused casualties in 2017, according to the latest Cluster Munition Monitor report.
Released last week, the Cluster Monition Coalition report found there were at least 289 new cluster munition-caused casualties recorded in 2017 including 187 in Syria and 54 in Yemen.
Cover of the Cluster Munition Monitor report for 2018.
Other countries where cluster munitions casulaties were recorded last year included Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Serbia and Vietnam as well as the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Western Sahara.
The figure for 2017 was dramatically down on the 2016 total which reached 971, with 860 recorded in Syria alone. Over the past five year period, 77 per cent of casualities from cluster munitions worldwide occurred in Syria.
The report says that since July last year, cluster munitions have continued to be used by Syrian Government forces with Russia’s support as well as in Yemen by the Saudi-backed coalition fighting Houthi rebels in support of the country’s government.
Jeff Abramson, coordinator of the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, said cluster munitions “pose extreme danger to civilians at the time of use, as the conflicts in Syria and Yemen illustrate, but cluster munition remnants also pose significant danger to civilians long after conflict has ended, as evidence from Lao PDR and other countries show”.
“The need is acute in Syria and other countries where cluster munitions are used to quickly identify and clear contaminated area that will otherwise threaten vulnerable civilians, especially children, for years and even decades to come,” he added.
Ten years after its adoption, 103 states are parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions with Sri Lanka, which acceded on 1st March, the newest. Another 17 states have signed but not yet ratified the convention.
The report shows that those countries which are party to the convention have destroyed 99 per cent of their cluster munitions stockpiles, eliminating more than 1.4 million cluster munitions and 177 million submunitions. Some 33,551 cluster munitions were destroyed in 2017 alone. Since August last year, Croatia, Cuba, Slovenia and Spain have completed destruction of their stockpiles.
The report also shows that in 2017 at least 93 square kilometres of contaminated land was cleared around the world, resulting in the destruction of at least 153 submunitions.
Cluster munitions are fired by artillery and rockets or dropped by aircraft and open in mid-air to release mulitple smaller bomblets or submunitions which then disperse over an area the size of a football field. They often fail to explode on impact and need to be cleared or destroyed later.
More than 21,000 deaths and injuries have been documented worldwide from cluster munitions since the 1960s.
