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UKRAINE’s military has been using cluster bombs on civilians in its bid to crush anti-fascist resistance in Donetsk, according to new reports.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it had documented “widespread” use of the deadly munitions, which explode in the air and scatter bomblets over a wide area — making civilian casualties inevitable.
Unexploded “submunitions” left on fields remain liable to explode, posing a similar risk to landmines.
A total of 114 countries around the world have banned their use because they deliberately target non-combatants, but Ukraine — alongside Russia, Israel and the United States — is among countries that have not signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The Ukrainian military denied that it had been using the weapons but HRW said “the evidence points to government forces’ responsibility for several cluster munitions attacks” that took place in Donetsk this month.
The New York-based charity said it could identify cluster bomb sites from the distinctive crater they leave as well as remnants of shells found in the area.
It documented 12 incidents of their use which had killed at least six people and wounded many more — and added that this was probably not the full total.
Among the dead were a 38-year-old Swiss citizen employed by the Red Cross, and 80-year-old Raisa Lefterova, who died after glass from a window shattered by a cluster bomb cut her carotid artery.
And it explained that details found at the impact sites showed the weapons had been launched from government-controlled areas.
“It is shocking to see a weapon that most countries have banned used so extensively in eastern Ukraine,” said HRW senior arms researcher Mark Hiznay.
“Ukrainian authorities should make an immediate commitment not to use cluster munitions and join the treaty to ban them.”
HRW admitted that the anti-government forces who took up arms following the fascist-backed February coup that overthrew Ukraine’s elected government “might also have been responsible for the use of cluster munitions,” but said evidence of this was “not conclusive.”
