Cluster bomb, a type of munition invented by the Nazis to kill as many as possible, used in coalition strike on farm that killed Raja, 14

By Bethan McKernan in Saada.

October 04, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -   The last day of 14-year-old Raja Hamid Yahya al-Oud’s life began like any other.

She got up early along with the rest of the family because there was always a lot of work to do on the farm in the spring planting season. White drones had intermittently circled above their cornfields for the last few weeks, but there was no sign of them that morning.

Raja and her mother, Amira, liked to take breaks under the acacia trees about 200 metres from the house. At 4pm, this was to become her final resting place.

The plane was flying too high for them to hear it coming but Amira said the sound the CBU-52 B/B cluster bomb made as it rained 220 deadly submunitions on their heads will stay with her forever. Some exploded on impact while others, still armed, fell into the fields.

Screaming for her daughter, Amira saw Raja’s twisted body under a small tree. Her jaw and entire right side had been ripped apart and blood had already dyed the sand around her black. A neighbour, Hamoud Mohammed al-Ghar, dodged the remaining submunitions to pick Raja up and then ran with her to the nearest road to find a car to take her to hospital. “I knew the girl was already dead,” he said. “But I had to try.” The drones circled ahead the entire time.

Raja died on 23 March 2018. But the story of the bomb that is believed to have killed her stretches back decades earlier. Using the serial number and other technical information on the CBU-52 B/B’s outer shell, the Guardian traced the munition from its manufacture in Milan, Tennessee, to Sahar farms, in north Yemen, where it ended a child’s life.