Cluster bombs, ammunition that the United States has announced that it will send to Ukraine, are controversial due to the serious effects that their use can cause in the civilian population, due to the way in which they are manufactured and the effects that they can cause in the long term.
This deadly device is a casing that can be dropped from aircraft, from ground artillery or from naval guns and inside it houses multiple bombs the size of a drink can or a small bottle of water. Each shell can contain tens or even hundreds of mini-bombs.
After being released, the large bomb is designed to open up in the air, before falling to the ground, to ensure that the submunition is spread over a wide area to hit a greater number of targets.
In addition, each minibomb can have an explosive delay mechanism to ensure that it does not explode in air, but on the ground. In reality, many do not explode -between 10% and 40%, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross- and remain scattered on the ground, which in practice turns them into antipersonnel mines and detonates by contact for a long time. after touching the ground.
In 2008, a hundred countries signed a treaty banning cluster bombs. Spain, which was also a manufacturer of this lethal product, signed the treaty and promised to stop producing it. In 2018, the Spanish armed forces completed the destruction of the stockpiles of these explosives. However, the large arms-producing countries, such as the United States, China or Russia, did not sign the agreement and continue to manufacture, sell and use them.
Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, estimate that a third of the victims of cluster bombs are children and that 60% are civilians.
In the Ukrainian war, these artifacts have already been used by both parties in conflict. The Ukrainian army has used Turkish-made ammunition to bomb the Donbass.
The first time that cluster bombs were used was during World War II, in 1943, by the Soviet Union against the soldiers of Nazi Germany. Since then, these devices have been used in most of the armed conflicts that have taken place in the world, and not only by authoritarian regimes. Israel dropped cluster bombs on Lebanon; United States in Afghanistan, Laos, Kosovo or Iraq, these last two countries that were also bombed by the United Kingdom.
