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Afghanistan sees record number of civilian victims in 1st half of 2016

Xinhua, July 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

A UN report revealed Monday that 5,166 Afghan civilians were either killed or injured in the first six months of this year, the highest casualty figure since the counting started in 2009.

Bringing the number of victims over the past seven and half years to 63,934, the human rights team of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that 1,601 civilians had lost their lives in the period under review, with a further 3,565 incurring injuries.

This represents a year-on-year increase of 4.0 percent in total casualty figures.

Close to one third of those affected by violence this year were children, with 388 and 1,121 respectively killed or maimed by fighting.

"Every single casualty documented in this report, people killed while praying, working, studying, fetching water, recovering in hospitals, 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," said UNAMA chief and Special Representative for Afghanistan Tadamichi Yamamoto in a statement.

"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 added.

The report highlighted that anti-government factions were responsible for 60 percent of casualties this year, while actions carried out by pro-government forces resulted in 23 percent of civilian casualties, a 47-percent increase from 2015.

According to figures, ground engagements were behind most civilian deaths and injuries, followed by suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Almost 158,000 Afghans were forced to flee their homes as a result of fighting and reigning insecurity in the first six months of this year, bringing the number of internally displaced Afghans to 1.2 million.

"The protracted conflict has meant that access to education and health care, to livelihood and shelter, to the freedom of movement and to a whole host of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights has been severely curtailed for millions of Afghans for far too long," Yamamoto concluded. Endit