Cluster Bombs Killed, Maimed More than 400 in 2015

Local Editor

Cluster bombs killed or injured more than 350 people in Syria and Yemen last year, a report said Thursday.

The Handicap International said almost all the victims around the world were civilians and in a third of the cases, children bore the brunt of their devastating effect.

The group urged signatories to the 2008 Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions to demand that the warring sides to stop using them.

The Oslo signatories are to meet in Geneva next week.

A total of 248 people were killed or wounded by the munitions in Syria in 2015, the report said, with civilians making up the vast majority of the victims.

Around the world, a total of 417 victims, dead or injured, were recorded in 2015.

Syria has seen a sharp rise in the use of cluster bombs, with 76 attacks recorded from September 2015 to July this year, the charity said, warning that the real number was probably far higher.

Cluster bombs, which consist of canisters that spray bomblets indiscriminately, also killed or maimed 104 people in Yemen.

In Yemen, the Saudi-led military coalition is accused of using the munitions.

Handicap International said that in both Syria and Yemen, a large number of the attacks hit markets, schools and hospitals.

The report highlights the continuing contamination of unexploded cluster bombs in Cambodia, Iraq, Laos and -- half a century after US forces withdrew from the country -- Vietnam.

The United States is not a signatory to the global agreement to limit the use of the munitions.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team