"There are serious risks to Iraqi children from cluster bombs or anti-personnel mines," said Carel De Rooy, head of UNICEF in Iraq.

"Before the war we ran a prevention and information campaign on the risks," he told a press conference here.

De Rooy said the weaponry was "especially dangerous to children because they are the same yellow colour as food packages dropped from planes."

Several non-governmental organisations have denounced the use of cluster bombs by coalition forces, and the Iraqi laying of anti-personnel mines.

Philippe Chabasse, co-director of Handicap International challenged a defence of the use of cluster bombs made by the British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.

"Cluster bombs are a perfectly legal weapon and have an entirely legitimate military role," Hoon said on BBC radio Friday, defending use of the ordnance by US-British forces attacking Iraq.

Responding to Hoon's contention that only five percent of cluster bombs failed, Chabasse said: "The argument is false because you can't talk about a fixed failure rate."

Damage caused depended on the altitude of attack and state of the ground.

Even five percent represented "hundreds, even thousands of unexploded devices on the ground," he warned.

Cluster munitions, which can either be dropped from aircraft or fired as shells, split up into a series of smaller "bomblets" which spread out over a wide area and are devastatingly effective against tanks, artillery and troops.

However, often some bomblets do not explode on impact -- the usual failure rate is at least 10 percent, experts say -- and the half-buried explosives remain a serious danger to local people long after the conflict is over.

Campaigners against the weapons say they contravene the Geneva Conventions on conduct during warfare because they cause "unnecessary harm", although this view is disputed.

De Rooy also warned Friday that Baghdad had only a month's supply of food reserves left.

Launching an appeal for funds for Iraqi children, De Rooy said that more than 60 percent of Iraqi civilians currently had only a once monthly foodbasket as part of the UN "Oil for food" programme for Iraq.

Before the war civilians sometimes received two, but often sold the additional food to buy other essentials.

SPACE.WIRE