Tue 05 April 2022:
The UN’s undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs says the world body has received “credible” allegations that Russian forces have used indiscriminate cluster munitions at least 24 times in populated parts of Ukraine.
Rosemary DiCarlo told the UNSC the global body was “gravely concerned by the persistent use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area,” saying such weapons are causing the most civilian casualties in the war.
She said that claims that Ukrainian forces have used such weapons were also being investigated.
DiCarlo added that allegations of “conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated by Russian forces” had also emerged.
“These include gang rape and rapes in front of children,” she added. “There are also claims of sexual violence by Ukrainian forces and civil defense militias.”
According to Human Rights Watch, the Syrian-Russian combined military campaign in Syria used internationally illegal cluster munitions extensively in its offensive in 2016.
As Russian and Syrian forces attempted to besiege the section of Aleppo controlled by armed opposition groups, a substantial number of documented cluster munition assaults took place north and west of the city.
Although Russia has denied using cluster munitions in Syria, there is growing evidence that it has stockpiled cluster munitions, and has used or has directly participated in attacks with the weapon.
Cluster munitions are delivered from the ground by artillery and rockets, or dropped from aircraft and contain multiple smaller submunitions.
A total of 119 countries have banned cluster munitions. Although Russia and Syria are not members of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, they are still bound by international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:
TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent
FACEBOOK (CLICK HERE)
https://web.facebook.com/ipindependent
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
