2023-07-08 21:36:30
“There are people who have not yet been born who will be the victims.” The American announcement on Friday of sending cluster bombs to Ukraine has revolted humanitarian organizations, which recall the monstrous impact of these weapons on civilians. Washington announced this decision shortly before the NATO summit in Vilnius next week, in a clear desire to increase aid to the forces of Kiev, mobilized in a counter-offensive which is struggling to produce major effects once morest the Russian army.
But the use of these cluster bombs (BASM) aroused, even before the official announcement, a wave of condemnation from those who, in the four corners of the world, measure the effects and try to mitigate them. In August 2022, the Cluster Munition Monitor, which brings together several specialized NGOs, noted that Ukraine was then the only theater where they were used, in this case by the Russian army.
These bombs disperse indiscriminately and over an area larger than several football fields a multitude of small explosives, a significant part of which does not explode and is buried in the ground. They then fall, de facto, into the category of anti-personnel mines. Militarily, they make it possible to hit a large number of enemy soldiers, to render an airport runway unusable or to mine a vast territory to hinder enemy progress. But, in violation of international humanitarian law, they strike civilians and soldiers alike. Experts claim that between 5 and 40% of submunitions fail to explode on impact and can thus remain in the ground for decades.
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