According to the latest cluster ammunition monitor, it is known that more than 1,200 people have been killed or mutilated in Ukraine since the large -scale invasion of Russia in February 2022. The true figure is probably much greater, But it could spend years before a precise number is known, said Loren Persi, team leadership for the cluster ammunition monitor report.
Citing conflicts in Syria and Yemen, where it was clear that there were a large number of victims, “This only came out (years) later”He told journalists in Geneva.
Lao legacy
Likewise, in the Popular Democratic Republic of Lao, which Mr. Persi described how the country most contaminated by conglomerate ammunition, “took decades” before the surveys confirm the estimates that many thousands of people had been killed or injured by strikes by conglomerate ammunition, which is generally understood as a container from which the sums are made.
The publication of civil society, backed by the UN Disarmament Research Agency, UNIDIDE, points out the Israeli accusations that Cluster ammunition were used in a ballistic missile attack by Iran in June 2025, and the reported but not verified of weapons in Gaza and the south of Lebanon.
The other reports of the report indicate that the de facto The forces in Myanmar have used cluster pumps “produced nationwide” and delivered to the air since around 2022, in the middle of the current civil war.
“The schools have been among the objectives in areas controlled by the rebels,” said monitor research specialist Michael Hart, highlighting their use in the state of Chin, the state of Rakhine, the Saigon region and the state of Kachin, among others.
Confused with toys
Submunitions, or bombs, as they are known, cause victims and damage through the impact of the explosion, their incendiary effect and fragmentation. According to Unidar, a single attack can involve thousands of individual explosive units that are generally extended in hundreds of square meters.
“These ammunition can be delivered to the air or thrown to the surface, and can be used against the armor, the material and the staff,” Unididate explained, although it is “very clear … that civilians continue to support the worst part” to suffer the remains of emissions of the group, Mr. Persi insisted.
As in previous years, children represented a high proportion (42 percent) of the victims of weapons in 2024, “who often find interesting, think they are toys or are at stake or on the way to school or when they work in the fields,” Mr. Persi continued.
Impact on fund cuts
The financing cuts for humanitarian work have had a negative impact on countries affected by explosive weapons.
These include Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, who had “progressed well” in the cleaning of contaminated lands, but now “they really fight with financing … to do authorization, therefore, they decrease speed,” said Katrin Atkins, principal researcher at Cluster Munits Monitor.
The “complete programs” supported by USAID in the past, including one in Lau, have been discontinued, Persi said.
“For decades, (the program) was essential to provide both first aid in remote areas where there are victims of cluster mines, which was clearly there to address the legacy of the bombings of the 60s and 70s,” he explained. “But also, the entire rehabilitation program, including prostheses … that was cut and as far as we know, not restored in any way.”
In the last 15 years since the Cluster ammunition convention, only 10 countries have used weapons and “all these are states, not part of the international agreement,” says the cluster ammunition monitor.
Manufacturing stop
A total of 18 countries have now ceased the production of cluster ammunition. All old producers are now parties of the Convention, apart from Argentina.
The report indicates that 17 countries still produce cluster ammunition or reserve the right to do so and none is a state part of the Convention. They are: Brazil, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Türkiye and the United States.