CBU-105 Cluster Bomb. (Courtesy)

Human Rights Watch has commended South Sudan’s decision to accede to the International Convention on Cluster Munitions while urging countries that have not joined to do so.

South Sudan parliament in May 2023, ratified the 2008 United Nations Convention on Cluster Munitions – which prohibits the use of chemical weapons.

The convention is a multilateral treaty adopted in Northern Ireland, as a result of concerns about the suffering of victims and casualties caused by cluster munitions.

It comprehensively bans cluster munitions and requires states parties to destroy their stockpiles, clear areas contaminated by cluster munition remnants, and provide assistance to victims of the weapons.

South Sudan has now joined the 102 State Parties that have acceded to the convention.

“By banning cluster bombs, South Sudan is taking an important step to strengthen international peace and security,” said Mary Wareham, the Arms Acting Director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition.

“Other countries should follow South Sudan’s example because preventing new use of cluster munitions is a humanitarian and human rights imperative.”

In 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Watch called o the governments of South SUdan and Uganda to investigate new evidence of the usage of banned cluster bombs in the South Sudan conflict.

This comes after UN experts reportedly found remnants of the weapons, including intact unexploded sub-munitions or “bomblets,” in February 7, 2014, near Bor town in Jonglei State.

But the South Sudan army denied using cluster bombs in its fight with then opposition forces, shrugging off the UN report.