Cluster Bombs

Cluster Bombs
The (cluster bombs) are weapons of war that kill and injure thousands of innocent civilians, both at the time of their use in the months and years that followed, due to contamination from unexploded ordnance that they leave behind. Their use continues to challenge established principles of international humanitarian law. For their indiscriminate effects, once unexploded on the ground, sub-munitions from cluster bombs are released similar to anti-personnel mines.
The cluster bombs are weapons consist of a container or dispenser which contains "sub-munitions" explosive in variable number of 200-250 units. The dispenser carried by an aircraft is unlatched Flare, opens and drops by gravity, and then with a random dispersion, the sub-munitions, saturating average diameter elliptical area of ​​2000 x 700 m. This feature leads to categorize the submunitions as "Weapons of saturation area" capable, compared to mine, to cover large areas with a much smaller number of devices.
There is also a type of anti-personnel cluster bombs dropped on target with large-caliber artillery shells. In this case the dispersion on the ground is reduced compared to those launched from aircraft.
The problems raised by the use of cluster munitions are manifold. First, given the nature of their "area weapons" that can spread bomblets over wide areas, make it particularly problematic when used in close proximity to civilian areas, aiming at purely military targets, thus making their indiscriminate immediate effects, in blatant violation of Art. 51 of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention.
In addition, at the time of employment, not all sub-munitions, which are contained in the dispenser and released, exploding due to various technical reasons and / or environmental as technical inefficiencies, the nature and impact of the land where exigent circumstances relating the jumping altitude and weather conditions.
The construction companies declare that the explosions are lacking at most equal to 5% of the cluster run. In the face of this given operating experience of reclamation, however, highlights data considerably higher. E 'was verified, in fact, that the percentage of missing explosions is not less than 15-20% to reach even 40-45% as found in some locations Afghanistan. High percentages indicating that on the ground, after the launch of cluster bombs, the density of the bombs exploded assumes no macroscopic dimensions, much higher than that obtainable if you were using anti-tank or anti-personnel mines. Virtually every dispenser launched remain on the ground about 20 sub-munitions failed to explode, real landmines. Considering the number of dispensers that are normally launched during a period of armed conflict, unexploded sub-munitions can therefore reach very high numbers.
A cluster bombs do not explode maintains its lethal potential almost indefinitely and becomes much more dangerous than a landmine as it can explode at the slightest stress also random with lethal effects 3 times higher than those of the most powerful mine-action extended to today known . It is also not an insignificant given that, as confirmed by the data from conflict zones, are used indiscriminately in populated areas, or in their immediate vicinity, and that the resulting contamination of the slow phase of post-conflict reconstruction, the cultivation of the fields, access to pastures, wells and makes mortally insecure roads, schools and homes.
In the last conflict in southern Lebanon, 60% of cluster bombs was launched in the immediate vicinity of towns or villages (source: Foreseeable Harm. The use and impact of cluster munitions in Lebanon: 2006 - Landmine Action - UK). Still in the same conflict, the estimated number of unexploded munitions, as reported by the Mine Action Coordination Center of the United Nations in southern Lebanon likely exceeded the one million devices.

The cluster numbers
The countries that have used these weapons are 15: Saudi Arabia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Israel, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Serbia, United States, Sudan, Turkey.
The countries are contaminated by cluster bombs 22: Afghanistan, Albania, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Croatia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Vietnam.
2 territories contaminated by cluster munitions: Chechnya and Kosovo
The countries that produce cluster munitions are 32 and among these there was also Italy with Simmel Defense Colleferro (Rome). The Oslo Convention, in 2008, had prohibited, but left the signatory States of the task to implement the ban in its national, someone has already done it for a long time, someone else - means the United States, Russia and China - has not even signed the Convention. Italy has put us three years to ratify, but has done it, and by 2011: in our territory cluster munitions can no longer produce, or transfer, or sell or store; existing stocks should be destroyed, except for a small part in the exercises used for demining; we are forced to clean up the infested territory and to provide assistance to victims.