The International Campaign to Ban Landmines – Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC) released its annual report on monitoring the use of cluster munitions globally, affirming that Syria continues to be the worst country in the world in terms of the death toll from cluster munitions.
"The highest national death toll globally in 2021 was in Syria, where 37 victims were killed by cluster munitions, constituting nearly 25% of the total number of victims worldwide in 2021," said the report.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), which is a member of the international coalition, has contributed periodic data documented by the working team on the ground in Syria.
The report indicated that two-thirds of these victims were children, adding that all the victims in 2021 were killed or injured by the explosion of remnants of cluster munitions that were used previously, making it the first year without casualties from new cluster munitions attacks since the first documented use of these munitions in Syria in 2012.
The report stated that 13 of Syria’s 14 governorates have been subjected to cluster munition attacks since 2012.
It further noted that while there has been a decrease in the number of cluster attacks since mid-2017, attacks continued throughout 2019 and 2020, citing two reports issued by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the first on April 19, 2019 and the second on February 27, 2020.
The report stated that the last documented attack was in March 2021, though it noted that there may have been attacks after this date that haven’t yet been reported.
The CMC is a global civil society campaign working to eradicate cluster munitions, prevent further casualties from them, and put an end to the suffering caused by these weapons.
