Wednesday, April 28, 1999

Cluster Bombs - Things You Cannot See on TV

    I suppose everything You know about what's going on in my country, it's on all TV news. Most of the media don't tell the truth. At least not all of it. But I am sure You are already aware of that. I hope that You can understand what we are going through here.

    All night and a big part of the day, my family and I spend in the basement of our house. We use pauses between two bombings to take a shower and have some sleep. The most scaring thing is when sirenes wake you, and you hear the planes right above your head. Detonations shake the house from the ground. We all try not to panic, but it goes on and on all night. My 14 year old brother can't sleep if he doesn't take a sedative. You can't imagine how worried my parents and I are because of that. And yet, we are actually lucky - at least we live in a safe part of the city.

    The cluster bombs that NATO uses are probably the most dangerous of all. They are perfect for killing civilians, mostly children. Each of them contains a large number of smaller bombs that explode with delay. Solders recognize them and they don't touch them before the experts come. But children don't know what they are and often play near them. There ere already several victims because of this. One of the victims was a 3 year old girl from Belgrade that came out of the shelter, because she had to go to the bathroom. She was killed, by a piece of this bomb, that went through the bathroom window. She died on her father's arms on the way to the hospital. Few days later, five boys died in Kosovo and two more were hurt by one of these bombs. They were from 5 to 14 years of age. They were all Albanians.

    These bombs are forbidden by international military conventions. I am sending this letter to You in hope that You can contribute in stopping this madness. This war brings nothing good to anyone, and I think that no war does.

    Please do whatever Your conscious tells You to. Thank You in the name of everyone that's suffering.

    Sincerely,

Nada Surbanovski
biology student