WHAT ARE CLUSTER MUNITIONS?

Cluster munitions consist of a container filled with lots of explosive ‘submunitions’. These containers might be dropped as bombs from aircraft or fired from artillery or rockets.

The container breaks open in mid-air and the submunitions are released - effectively carpet bombing an area the size of two or three football fields.

Anybody within that area, be they military or civilian, is likely to be torn apart.

For example, each of the UK’s BL755 cluster munitions contains 147 submunitions designed to disable tanks and to kill people. Each submunition contains explosives, a copper cone, a prestressed fragmentation sheath and an incendiary sponge. On detonation the submunition blasts a jet of molten copper, a ball of fire and 2,000 steel fragments through the surrounding area.