The UN Human Rights Office has received “credible information” that Russia has repeatedly usedin the two weeks since he invaded Ukraine, cluster munitions, a prohibited type of weapon for its indiscriminate impact on civilians.
(Read: The US warns that Russia would use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine)
The use of these bombs would have occurred “even in populated areas,” said the agency’s spokeswoman, Liz Throssell, who explained that on 24 February a cluster bomb exploded in the main hospital in Vuhledarlocated in the part of Donetsk under government control and where four civilians were killed and a dozen were injured.
(You are interested in: The Russian army extends its offensive in Ukraine and approaches Kiev)
(Due to the public interest in the events between Russia and Ukraine, all of our coverage of that invasion and related actions will be freely accessible to all readers of TIME)
Due to their wide-area effects, the use of cluster bombs in populated areas is incompatible with international humanitarian law.
“There were other cluster bomb attacks in various districts of Kharkiv, in which nine civilians were killed and 37 wounded,” the spokeswoman continued.
An international treaty banning the use, development, manufacture, acquisition and stockpiling of cluster bombs has been in force since 2010.
Currently 110 States have fully adhered to this legal instrument and another thirteen have signed it, but have not yet ratified it.
Russia, like the United States or China, are not among the adherents to this treaty, to which Ukraine is also not a party.. The international community deemed it necessary to negotiate a specific treaty to completely ban this type of weapon due to the terrible impact it causes on the civilian population in conflict situations.
Whether dropped from the ground or from the air, cluster bombs consist of containers that open and scatter hundreds and sometimes thousands of submunitions over a wide area.
Many remain unexploded and become remnant explosives that can injure or kill someone even decades later, as well as prevent the use of farmland.
According to the Observatory on the use of cluster bombs and antipersonnel mines, the first were used between July 2014 and February 2015, during the previous conflict in Ukrainewhen separatist groups took up arms against the central government and took control of part of two regions in the east of the country, bordering Russia.
On the other hand, the UN Human Rights Office reported that it has verified the death of 549 civilians in the current war in Ukraine, as well as the cases of 957 people injured. “Schools, hospitals and nurseries have been hit, with devastating consequences,” Throssell said.
EFE
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