400m people live and work in minefields

Geneva: Some 400 million people around the world live and work in what are effectively minefields, at daily risk of death or maiming by cluster bombs, according to a report issued yesterday.

The report, from the campaign group Handicap International, said more than 13,000 civilians are known to have been killed or injured in recent years by the bombs, but that the real figure was probably many times higher.

In the wake of armed conflicts "unexploded cluster submunitions turn homes, livelihoods and social areas of 400 million people living in affected countries into de facto minefields," the report said.

Nearly 50 states meet in Lima, Peru, on May 23-25, to discuss a draft of a treaty to ban the weapons, which have been used widely in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Russian region of Chechnya.

In February, 46 countries meeting in Oslo pledged to aim for an international ban by next year.

But major cluster bomb-producing states, including the United States, Russia and China, were not in Oslo and have made clear they oppose a blanket ban, arguing that they need to keep the option of using the weapon for defence.