In Norway, more than 40 countries are gathering today for an international conference on banning the use of cluster bombs.

Marc Joolen, general director of Belgium’s Handicap International: “Throughout the world, we know of 21 countries which are still polluted with cluster bomblets, and the estimate goes toward some 33 million undetonated bomblets that are still lying around.”

The Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions was spearheaded by the Norwegian government to draw attention to the thousands of deaths attributed to cluster bombs each year. Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, addressed the consequences from Israel’s attacks on Lebanon last summer.

Human Rights Watch Emergencies Director Peter Bouckaert: “Israel used as many cluster bombs in just a small area of southern Lebanon as the U.S. and the coalition forces used in all of Iraq during a much longer conflict. Southern Lebanon was literally sown with cluster bombs. After the war ended, there was really no safe place to go where you didn’t have to look down on the ground and worry about unexploded cluster bombs.”