A new report released on Thursday on cluster munitions reveals Russia’s “intense and repeated” use of cluster munitions in Syria, especially in the provinces of Aleppo, Homs and Idlib.
The annual report, co-produced by Handicap International and the Cluster Munition Coalition, an international civil society campaigns working to eradicate cluster munitions, officially records 76 attacks in Syria since September 2015.
The report found that at least 248 people, including many children, were killed in these attacks in 2015 and in the early months of 2016. It also found that 97% of victims of cluster munitions were civilians, and 36% were children.
Handicap International said that there are near daily reports of new cluster munition attacks in Syria, calling for an end to the use of this “barbaric weapon.”
President of the Syrian Coalition Anas Alabdah on Monday sent a letter to foreign ministers of the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG) warning of the dire consequences of the use of internationally prohibited weapons against civilians by the Assad regime and its allies.
Alabdah called upon the ISSG to take immediate and decisive action to ensure that the crimes by the regime and its allies are investigated by the relevant UN bodies, including the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) and the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, as well as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Alabdah also called for holding to account those responsible for these crimes so as to ensure they are not repeated. (Source: Syrian Coalition + Agencies)
