![]() I mention Russia and Ukraine, because both are using cluster munitions in Ukraine today, harming and killing civilians. There is an international convention against cluster munitions 123 countries have signed or ratified it, but Russia, Ukraine, and the United States are three that have not. What’s more, many of these bomblets fail to explode on initial use, sitting there like landmines for years. In short, using them is almost guaranteed to be a war crime. It’s nearly impossible for those firing them to aim for military targets without causing civilian causalities, as well. Cluster munitions are weapons delivered by artillery, rockets, missiles, and aircraft that open in mid-air and disperse dozens or hundreds of bomblets over a wide area – like the size of a football field or two. This may be fiction, but the danger is very real. ![]() They were never even alive during the war, but they were victims of it anyway, because the warring militaries used cluster munitions. As for the girl who was walking toward him, she’ll survive, but she’ll be undergoing a series of reconstructive surgeries on her face for years. When the ambulance arrives, there’s nothing they can do for the boy. Hundreds of small metal pellets shoot out in all directions. He calls his friend to come and pokes the object with his foot to turn it over. It looks bit like a soda can maybe, he thinks, but it has petals sticking up from one end of it. Until the day one boy sees something under a bush. They sleep soundly at night, and by day, they run through the fields and forests on the edge of the village as carefree as kids anywhere – laughing, shouting, playing tag or hide-and-seek. The war, now long over, still returns as nightmares to those old enough to have lived through it, but for the children born in the hopeful years since, it’s not even a memory.
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