Human Rights Watch said on Friday (August 30) during the release of the Cluster Munition Monitor 2018 report.
Since the treaty banning cluster munitions took effect 10 years ago, 103 states have joined and another 17 have signed on but not yet ratified it. Assad regime, which is not party to the treaty, reportedly has been using cluster munitions since mid-2012, about one year after war broke out there. According to the Cluster Munition Coalition — an international civil society movement that campaigns against the devices — Assad regime denies possessing or using such weapons.
Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch is an editor of Cluster Munition Monitor 2018, the latest annual report of the Cluster Munition Coalition, a global group of nongovernmental organizations co-founded and chaired by HRW. She said the use of both air-dropped and ground-launched cluster munitions had increased since Russia joined Assad military operations in 2015, but that their use had fallen off this year.
"There are several reasons for that," she said. "One is that … the territory held by the opposition forces has been shrinking in the past year. Most of the cluster munition attacks have been centered on Idlib. ... A cluster munition rocket attack a couple of weeks ago in Idlib resulted in civilian casualties. And there has been use of air-dropped cluster munitions in Dhouma and in other governorates."
According to the Monitor, there were 289 new casualties in 2017 and 99 percent of cases in which the victim’s status was reported were civilians. That included 187 casualties in Syria from both new attacks and explosive remnants.
Cluster Munition Monitor 2018 is the ninth annual report of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), the global coalition of nongovernmental organizations co-founded and chaired by Human Rights Watch.
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