CLUSTER BOMB FACTS

• Cluster munitions severely disrupt the lives and livelihoods of 400 million people worldwide
• 98 percent of cluster bomb casualties are civilians and 27 percent are children
• One cluster bomb contains hundreds of bomblets (or submunitions) and typically scatters them across an area the size of 2-4 football fields
• Bomblets are small, often the size of a 'D' battery or a tennis ball and have a failure rate of up to 30 percent; unexploded bomblets become de facto landmines
• At least 72 countries around the world stockpile cluster munitions and 34 are known to have produced more than 210 types of cluster munitions
• Cluster bombs impede economic development, restrict access to water and deprive children of safe access to education
• Cluster munitions have been used in at least 39 countries and territories
• The global stockpile of cluster bomb submunitions totals approximately 4 billion, with a quarter of these in U.S. hands
• Unexploded bomblets were responsible for the death of nearly 10% of the U.S. fatalities in the Gulf War
• The United States dropped 19 million in Cambodia, 70 million in Vietnam and 208 million in Laos
• The U.S. executed over 580,000 bombing missions over Laos, dropping, on average, an entire planeload of bombs every eight minutes, around the clock, for nine years.
• The most cluster contaminated areas are in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Kosovo and Vietnam.