Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Long outlasting the conflicts that deployed them, cluster munitions leave a deadly legacy, injuring and killing civilians for decades after the fighting ends. From Laos to Lebanon, these weapons have scattered hundreds of small, unguided explosive sub-munitions across vast areas. Many failed to detonate immediately and lay hidden in fields, forests, streets and schoolyards, where they are sometimes mistaken for everyday objects by adults and children who find them.
In 2008, over 100 countries came together to ban cluster munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions — one of the most significant disarmament treaties of the modern era, with thousands of square kilometres of land cleared and thousands of lives saved. ICRC legal adviser Fahad Ahmed explains what these weapons are, why they were banned, and why the international community cannot afford to forget.
0:00 A cluster munition is a weapon that disperses
0:48 They could land anywhere
1:06 civilians have been disproportionately affected by these weapons
Long outlasting the conflicts that deployed them, cluster munitions leave a deadly legacy, injuring and killing civilians for decades after the fighting ends. From Laos to Lebanon, these weapons have scattered hundreds of small, unguided explosive sub-munitions across vast areas. Many failed to detonate immediately and lay hidden in fields, forests, streets and schoolyards, where they are sometimes mistaken for everyday objects by adults and children who find them.
In 2008, over 100 countries came together to ban cluster munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions — one of the most significant disarmament treaties of the modern era, with thousands of square kilometres of land cleared and thousands of lives saved. ICRC legal adviser Fahad Ahmed explains what these weapons are, why they were banned, and why the international community cannot afford to forget.
0:00 A cluster munition is a weapon that disperses
0:48 They could land anywhere
1:06 civilians have been disproportionately affected by these weapons
