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1st LD Writethru: Civilian casualties rise 22 pct in Afghanistan in 2014: UN

Xinhua, February 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

The conflict-related Afghan civilian casualties rose 22 percent in 2014, making it the deadliest year since 2009 when the UN mission in the conflict-ridden country began tracking the deaths and injuries of civilians, an official of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said here Wednesday.

Presenting the annual report on civilian casualties, Nicholas Haysom, the UN secretary-general's special representative and head of UNAMA, described the rise in ground engagements between warring sides in the militancy-plagued country.

"Increased ground engagements between parties to the armed conflict in Afghanistan are behind a 22 percent rise in conflict- related deaths and injuries of Afghan civilians in 2014," UNAMA said in the report released here.

"UNAMA documented 10,548 civilian casualties in 2014, the highest number of civilian deaths and injuries recorded in a single year since 2009. Included in the toll were 3,699 civilian deaths (up 25 percent) and 6,849 civilian injuries (up 21 percent) for a 22 percent rise in total civilian casualties over 2013," the report said.

Since 2009, the armed conflict in Afghanistan has caused 47,745 civilian casualties with 17,774 Afghan civilians killed and 29,971 injured, the report noted.

The report found that civilian deaths and injuries from ground operations surged by 54 percent, making them the leading cause of civilian casualties and the biggest killers of Afghan women and children in 2014.

For the first time since 2009, more Afghan civilians were killed and injured in ground engagements than by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or any other tactics, according to the report.

The report attributed 72 percent of the all civilian casualties in 2014 to the anti-government elements, 14 percent to pro- government elements, 10 percent to ground engagement between warring sides in which a civilian casualty could not be attributed to a specific party, 3 percent to unattributed explosive devices left over from the war and the remaining 1 percent from cross- border shelling. Endi