Friday the 22nd of September saw the return of the annual shoe pyramid event in Paris, hosted by the NGO, Handicap International. Members of the public are invited to drop off their shoes, in order to form a huge pyramid. This symbolises the injured and mutilated victims of mines and cluster bombs.
The NGO Handicap International deplored the return of “Banned weapons, such as anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions.”
According to the international watchdog, “Cluster Munitions Coalition,” despite the weapons being banned in over 100 countries, they documented 987 deaths and injuries from attacks in 2022.
The aim of cluster munitions is to scatter dozens or hundreds of lethal anti-personnel or anti-tank devices over a given territory. However, they don’t completely explode upon impact which makes them an extremely dangerous threat for civilians.
This year’s Shoe Pyramid protest comes after the US announced in July that it would be sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, to help Kyiv combat the Russian invasion.
