These are real life stories from people around the world who have had contact with cluster munitions.
More Real-Life Stories and images can be found at the Image Gallery on Cluster Munitions.
To read more about the experiences of survivors of cluster munitions and their work to achieve a ban, visit the Ban Advocates web site.
 Quang Tri province, Vietnam. Credit: Wikipedia |
More than three decades after the Vietnam War ended, explosive remnants from the conflict are still injuring and killing civilians in Vietnam. Unexploded cluster submunitions are among the deadliest legacies of the war. Known locally as “bombies, ” these tennis ball-sized bomblets are filled with thumb tack-sized pieces of metal that disperse upon detonation, frequently causing civilian injuries and deaths. The Convention on Cluster Munitions will become binding international law on 1 August 2010 after reaching 30 ratifications in February. Vietnam’s neighbor, Lao PDR, which suffered the effects of the same war and is the most heavily cluster-bombed country in the world, has been a leader on the treaty and is hosting the First Meeting of States Parties to the convention in November. However, Vietnam has yet to sign the Convention. As the Cluster Munition Coalition counts down to the Convention’s entry into force, we’re urging affected countries like Vietnam to join the treaty without delay. |
Audio Slideshow
“Burden of fear: Cluster bombs in Vietnam” is a three-part audio slideshow highlighting the impact on civilians of Vietnam’s deadly legacy of unexploded cluster submunitions.
“Burden of Fear” reporting and production by Daysha Eaton. Photos by Amanda Koster.
Switzerland to ban investment in cluster munitions
(London, 12 March 2010) – Switzerland is poised to join a number of countries that have outlawed investments in cluster munitions, after the Swiss National Council passed two motions on 10 March 2010 to prohibit financial support for the production of all banned weapons. The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) welcomed the step and called on more countries to follow suit, to eradicate the double standard of banning cluster munitions while allowing financial institutions to benefit from their production elsewhere.
Lao PDR: Five children killed in cluster bomb blast
Rights of survivors, urgent clearance of remnants should be priorities at November meeting
(London, 11 March 2010) – Five children were killed and one injured when a cluster submunition exploded in a village in Lao PDR’s Champasak province on 22 February 2010. The incident highlights the need for urgent action to assist survivors and ensure the clearance of cluster munition remnants when states parties to the treaty banning cluster bombs gather for their first official meeting in the Lao capital, Vientiane, this November, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) said today.
Sitting on the steps of her modest house, Rum Vet, 35, shyly describes the cluster bomb explosion that left her legless from the right knee down and killed her brother nearly 25 years ago. She was just a young girl when the cluster bomb went off while she was working in the fields near her house in Kratie, which is one of Cambodia’s most heavily-bombed provinces, but she has felt the effects of the explosion her whole life.
“One day in 2003 I took my two boys down to the river to go fishing. I found a cluster bomb in the water and picked it up because I wanted to use it as an explosive, to blow up in the river so that we could catch more fish. But it went off in my hands and blew off my arms.
