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Cluster bomb victims overwhelmingly civilian-report

02 Nov 2006 09:00:04 GMT
Source: Reuters

GENEVA, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Civilians, a quarter of them children, make up almost all the victims of cluster bombs over the last three decades, a humanitarian agency said on Thursday.

In a study of 24 countries and regions, Handicap International said the controversial weapons, which scatter munitions over a wide area, had killed, wounded or maimed 11,044 people of whom 98 percent were civilians.

The under-reporting of victims in such places as Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam meant the real total could be almost 10 times higher, it said.

Some 27 percent of the victims were children, mainly boys, who were working or playing in areas where munitions were lying around after failing to explode on impact.

"For 30 years governments have failed to address the disproportionate, long-term harm these weapons cause to civilian populations," Angelo Simonazzi, the agency's director general, said in a statement.

Cluster bombs were recently used by Israel in its month-long war in Lebanon against Hezbollah guerrillas.

The United Nations estimates 100,000 cluster bomblets failed to explode in Lebanon, with most landing during the final 72 hours of the war, which ended in an Aug. 14 ceasefire.

According to Handicap International, they still cause between two and three casualties a day in south Lebanon.

Other places covered by the report, which the agency said was the first attempt to collate data about cluster bomb victims worldwide, included Chad, Laos, the Russian region of Chechnya and Kosovo.

Handicap International is one of many organisations calling for a ban on cluster munitions along the lines of the prohibition imposed in 1997 on the use of anti-personnel mines.

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Last updated:Thu Nov 2 09:03:48 2006