Off the wire
• China's Sansha launches maritime ecological protection fund  • Precious Amur leopard hit by car in Russia's Far East  • Indian High Court acquits Bollywood actor in antelope poaching cases  • Urgent: At least 10 killed in suicide car bomb attack in Iraq's Diyala  • Urgent: China, ASEAN vow to promote peace, stability in South China Sea  • Tokyo shares close lower on stronger yen, Nintendo shares slump  • China earmarks relief funds for flood-hit Hebei  • Think tank lowers forecast for Taiwan's economic growth  • Urgent: ASEAN FMs stress full, effective implementation of DOC  • 25-year-old Israeli woman gangraped in northern India: police  
You are here: 　 Home

Afghan civilian casualties increase in H1: UN mission

Xinhua, July 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

The overall Afghan civilian causalities increased in first six months of the year in compare with the same period in 2015, a UN mission here said in its mid-year report released on Monday.

"Between January and June this year, the Human Rights team of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 1,601 civilian deaths and 3,565 injured civilians. This represents an increase of 4 percent in the total number of casualties compared to the first six months of 2015 - and is the highest half-year total since 2009," according to the report.

The ground engagements continue to cause the highest number of civilian casualties, followed by complex and suicide attacks and improved explosive devices (IEDs), the report found.

Tadamichi Yamamoto, Secretary-General's special representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, said that the report must serve as a call to action by parties to the conflict "to do all they can to spare civilians from the horrors of war."

"Every single casualty documented in this report - people killed while praying, working, studying, fetching water, recovering in hospitals - every civilian casualty represents a failure of commitment and should be a call to action for parties to the conflict to take meaningful, concrete steps to reduce civilians' suffering and increase protection," Yamamoto told reporters at a press briefing on Monday.

"Platitudes not backed by meaningful action ring hollow over time. History and the collective memory of the Afghan people will judge leaders of all parties to this conflict by their actual conduct," he noted.

The report also found other human rights violations and abuses, including the deliberate targeting of women in the public sphere, use of children in armed conflict, sexual violence against boys and girls, attacks on educational and health facilities, abductions and summary executions.

The report has attributed 60 percent of the casualties to the Taliban and other insurgent groups, while 23 percent were attributed to security forces. Some 17 percent of civilian casualties were unattributed or caused by explosive remnants of war.

More than 22,941 civilians were killed and over 40,993 others wounded from Jan. 1, 2009 to June 30, 2016, according to the report. Enditem