Frequently Asked Questions

Myths and Realities

Related Links

Key Facts

• Cluster munitions pose an immediate danger to civilians during attacks due to their inaccuracy and wide dispersal pattern.
• After conflict, cluster munitions pose a lasting hazard due to the high number of landmine-like submunition duds that litter the landscape.
• The shapes and small size of cluster munitions are appealing to children, who mistake them for toys. Children accounted for 60 percent of cluster munition victims in Iraq after the US dropped 61,000 cluster bombs containing some 20 million submunitions between January 17 and February 28, 1991.
• Cluster munitions left behind after conflict kill and injure civilians who are already trying to rebuild their lives after war.
• Cluster submunitions litter towns, farms, and fields, preventing people from harvesting their crops or using their land for decades after a conflict has ended.
• Cluster munitions have been used and caused civilian harm in Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Chechnya, Croatia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Montenegro, Pakistan, Serbia, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and Western Sahara.
• Billions of submunitions are stockpiled by 75 countries worldwide.