The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), an international group against deadly explosives that have caused numerous civilian casualties around the world, said Burma’s ruling Military Council has produced and used the bombs during the war against resistance groups in Chin, Karenni, Karen, and Shan states over the last 13 months.
In its report, CMC, which has branches in over 100 countries, reported finding evidence of Burma army’s cluster bombs during attacks between February 2021 and early June 2023.
Although the army used these types of munitions about 10 years ago, they weren’t producing them in the country, the organization found.
On some of the shell casings that were recovered, there are English and Thai letters, which means they were imported from Thailand. The Burma army also produced 120 mm shells, which include bomblets or submunitions inside the shells, attached with a plastic spinner tail. If these bomblets do not suddenly detonate on impact, the unexploded ordnances will detonate later, like a landmine, making it extremely dangerous for civilians.
Burma has not signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The army killed many civilians and wounded others when it used cluster bombs during an airstrike in Mindat town in southern Chin State in April, according to the report.
The same types of explosives were dumped on the town in July 2022, killing at least 13 civilians. Staff with CMC evaluated materials from the bombs retrieved after the airstrike.
Salai Har Oum, spokesperson of Mindat Chinland Defense Force (CDF), said that they have extensively collected documentation about the army’s targeting of civilians and its use of cluster bombs in Mindat.
“We have also collected data related to serious human rights abuses and war crimes committed by Burma army. We will send this data to the international community, and one day action will be taken against the military junta.”
CMC reported the regime using the munitions during the recent airstrikes in northwestern and eastern Burma. Many people were killed, and many homes were destroyed.
Thousands of people in the country have been uprooted by the regime’s increasingly reliance on airstrikes to which the resistance groups have no defense.