Afghanistan: Conflict Continues to take a devastating toll
Afghanistan: Conflict Continues to take a
devastating toll on civilians despite decrease in civilian
casualties during first six months of 2012 – UN
Report
KABUL/GENEVA (8 August 2012) – In the first six months of 2012, conflict-related violence in Afghanistan continued to take a devastating toll on civilians, the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said today, releasing its 2012 Midyear Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict.
Between 1 January and 30 June 2012, conflict-related violence resulted in 3,099 civilian casualties -- 1,145 civilians killed and 1,954 injured -- a 15 per cent decrease in overall civilian casualties compared with the same period in 2011 [when UNAMA documented 3,654 civilian casualties (1,510 killed and 2,144 injured).] Of the 3,099 civilians killed or wounded, 925 were women or children representing 30 per cent of all civilian casualties.
“The United Nations welcomes the reduction in civilian casualties, but we must remember that Afghan children, women and men continue to be killed and injured at alarmingly high levels,” said Nicholas Haysom, Deputy UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan. “The 3,099 civilian casualties documented in this report were ordinary Afghans struggling to go about their daily lives in the midst of an armed conflict.”
“I call on all parties to the conflict to increase their efforts to protect civilians from harm and to respect the sanctity of human life,” Haysom stated.
Anti-Government Elements were responsible for 80 per cent of civilian casualties, killing 882 civilians and injuring 1,593 others during the first six months of 2012, down 15 per cent from the first six months of 2011.
In the first half of this year, UNAMA documented 165 civilian deaths and 131 others injured from the operations of Pro-Government Forces –10 per cent of the total number of civilian casualties -- reflecting a 25 per cent reduction compared with the same period of 2011. A further 98 civilian deaths and 230 injured, or 10 per cent of the total casualties, could not be attributed to any party to the conflict.
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) continued to cause the greatest number of civilian casualties. Between 1 January and 30 June 2012, IEDs alone accounted for 33 per cent of all civilian casualties – killing 327 civilians and injuring 689 others. When taking suicide and complex attacks which used IEDs into account, the overall use of IEDs by Anti-Government Elements caused 53 per cent of all civilian deaths and injuries documented in the report.
“Victim-activated improvised explosive devices are illegal, as they fail to distinguish between civilians and combatants,” said Mr. Haysom “This heinous weapon has killed or maimed the greatest number of Afghan civilians during the conflict and I call on the Taliban to cease their use.”
Civilian casualties, resulting from targeted killings by Anti-Government Elements, increased by 53 per cent in 2012 with UNAMA documenting the death of 255 civilians and injuries to 101 others in 237 separate incidents.
Aerial operations by international military forces have continued to cause more civilian deaths and injuries than any other tactic used by Pro-Government Forces since UNAMA began documenting civilian casualties. Between 1 January and 30 June, UNAMA documented 83 civilian deaths and 46 injured as a result of aerial attacks by international military forces. Although this is a 23 per cent reduction in civilian casualties from aerial operations compared with the same period in 2011, the report notes that nearly two-thirds of all civilian deaths and injuries resulting from air operations in the first half of this year were women and children.
ISAF has taken steps intended to prevent civilian casualties during air operations, including its response to the 6 June 2012 air operation in Logar which resulted in a disproportionate loss of civilian life, including the death of 18 civilians, most of whom were women and children.
Afghan National Security Forces and ISAF night search operations continued to decrease with 32 civilian casualties (20 killed and 12 injured) occurring during the first six months of the 2012, a 27 per cent decrease compared with the same period in 2011.
While many communities reported improvements in the security environment in locations where Afghan Local Police were deployed, local residents raised concerns including on the recruitment of human rights abusers into the Afghan Local Police in some districts and weaknesses in vetting processes, training, command and control and accountability and oversight mechanisms. UNAMA documented human rights abuses against civilians in seven provinces across the country along with failures to investigate and prosecute Afghan Local Police suspected of abuses (past and present).
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stressed the importance of holding accountable the perpetrators of human rights violations in efforts to bring down the number of civilian casualties.
“Impunity for human rights abuses only emboldens the perpetrators,” she said. “Violations must be duly investigated, perpetrators brought to justice and the victims granted remedies. Holding violators accountable is a crucial step towards improving security for Afghan women, men and children.”
As documented in the report, attacks against schools have increased and the Taliban’s interference in the running of local schools has impacted the access of children, especially girls, to education. In the first six months of 2012, UNAMA verified 34 attacks against schools, including cases of burnings of school buildings, targeted killings and intimidation of teachers and school officials, armed attacks against and occupation of schools, and closures, particularly of girls’ schools. “It is extremely worrying that attacks against schools have increased so dramatically,” said James Rodehaver, acting-Chief of the UNAMA Human Rights Unit. “These attacks not only put children at risk of harm, but also seriously impede their access to education, which is a fundamental human right.”
UNAMA interviewed residents from communities in 99 districts, where Anti-Government Elements have increasingly exerted influence or control, to assess human rights protection in those locations. Local communities provided consistent accounts of Anti-Government Elements introducing parallel judicial mechanisms that carried out serious human rights abuses with impunity, including executions, amputations, mutilations and severe beatings. Taliban officials threatened, intimidated and abducted residents they considered to be supporters of the Government and imposed illegal taxes on many communities. Anti-Government Elements also restricted access to health care in some communities, including the disruption of polio awareness and vaccination campaigns.
“Effective measures to increase
civilian protection require more than reductions in civilian
casualties; there must also be an end to impunity,” said
Rodehaver. “Accountability for serious human rights abuses
should be a key indicator of the success of transition and
the willingness of all parties to the conflict to place the
lives, security, and human rights of Afghan women, children
and men as their primary concern moving forward.”
_________________________________________________________________
Selected accounts of Afghan civilians from UNAMA’s 2012 midyear report on Protection of Civilians in Conflict:
My wife, our four children, my brother’s wife and
her two children were waiting at the district administration
centre to receive our Tazkeera (national ID). I asked my
family to remain near the gate and so that I could go inside
to check if the Statistic Department staff had arrived to
work. I heard a loud explosion and I ran back to the gate.
I saw people lying in blood on the ground. I saw one of my
daughters dead on the ground and my other three daughters
and their mother wounded. The police helped me put my
daughters and wife in a vehicle and transferred them to the
hospital.
- Father of two girls killed in an
IED attack, Herat province, 10 April 2012
I
was with my uncle in the yard of the Spozhmai hotel. It was
around 11pm. He asked me to get the camera from the vehicle
to record our social activities. I went to the car; it was
then when I heard the shooting. I saw a gunman firing
randomly at people and saw him firing at a group of young
men – they were singing, enjoying their music. Some of
them were not killed instantly; the wounded were crying for
help and the gunman came back and shot them, targeting their
heads. He killed them all. I also saw how they killed my
uncle; they shot him in his head. His brain had come out.
You know, he had just arrived from Iran to visit his elderly
mum. They killed him. They just went around the hotel yard
and inside the building to search for people to kill.
- Survivor of 15 June complex attack at
Spozhmai Hotel, Qargha Lake, Kabul.
One day,
one of the guards communicated with his partner through a
radio. From the cave they brought me to a farm and decided
to play a game with me. I saw 50/60 armed people. They
blindfolded me again. They wanted to behead me and someone
put a knife on my throat. Then another person intervened and
told them that I was old and ordered them not to behead me
but just to cut my hand. Then they took me by force and
asked a person to tie my right arm. He tied my biceps and my
forearm with two tourniquets. Then, with a knife they
amputated my hand by first cutting above the wrist and then
below. The hand was then forcibly detached from the wrist
bone. When they cut the part below it was very painful but I
did not cry and I did not scream because I am a man.
- A victim whose arm was amputated by the
Taliban in April 2012
At around 1.00 am, I
heard the noises of warplanes and helicopters and then
numerous explosions within the village. After the planes and
helicopters left the area, I came out of the house and saw
that my cousin’s house was completely destroyed. I ran
screaming and shouting towards the house and searched for
survivors. In the second room I saw blood on the bricks and
found Zarghona in the rubble, the four year old daughter of
my cousin. She was dead. All the villagers came to help
search for survivors. In the rubble of the third room we
found the nine year old son of my cousin. The explosion
severed his head from his body. All people were shouting and
screaming. We then found the dead body of his mother next to
him, her face was completely destroyed. I could not
continue.
- Relative of 18 civilians killed
in 6 June airstrike, Baraki Barak district, Logar
province
UNAMA’s 2012 midyear report makes the following recommendations to improve the protection of civilians:
Anti-Government Elements
• Comply with international humanitarian law, uphold
the principles of distinction, proportionality and
precautionary measures, and apply a definition of
‘civilian’ that is consistent with international
humanitarian law.
• In accordance with international
law, stop targeting civilians and withdraw orders that
permit attacks and killings of civilians, i.e. by using
suicide bombing.
• Immediately cease the use of
pressure-plate IEDs, and publicly commit to banning the use
of these indiscriminate and illegal weapons.
• Prohibit judicial structures which impose unlawful
punishments such as killing, amputation, mutilation and
beatings. Enforce codes of conduct, instructions and
directives instructing members to prevent and avoid civilian
casualties and hold accountable those members who target,
kill and injure civilians.
• Allow humanitarian
organizations full access to communities, particularly those
providing health care services, clinics and doctors. Make
public commitments to support vaccination campaigns and
allow vaccination teams to carry out safe vaccination
campaigns throughout Afghanistan.
Government of
Afghanistan
• Take further concrete steps to
strengthen rule of law institutions, particularly police and
judiciary, in order to ensure that criminal activity is
increasingly dealt with in a lawful manner by government
agencies. This includes investigation, prosecution and
punishment of individuals carrying out unlawful punishments
in parallel justice structures, particularly killings, as
well as human rights abuses and other criminal acts carried
out by Anti-Government Elements.
• Create a civilian
casualty mitigation team in the Afghan National Army similar
to the ISAF Civilian Casualty Mitigation Team to ensure
transparent and timely investigations and accurate tracking
of all incidents of civilian casualties caused by ANSF to
improve civilian protection, compensation and
accountability.
• Protect fully the right of all
children, especially girls, to access education. Efforts
should be made to ensure all schools remain open and safe,
by protecting the civilian nature of schools and not
involving education facilities in military activities.
School curriculums must reflect the human rights standards
protected by the laws of the Afghanistan and the content
approved by the Ministry of Education.
• Ensure
effective vetting, recruitment, oversight and accountability
mechanisms of ALP members inter alia in order to prevent
human rights abuses. Ensure lawful response to reported
criminality by ALP and with the support of international
military forces, ensure all other local defense forces are
disbanded at the earliest opportunity.
International Military Forces
• Continue reviewing tactical directives and
operational procedures, particularly those regulating the
conduct of aerial attacks, with a view to further preventing
incidental loss of civilian life and injury and damage to
civilian objects and providing reparations to civilian
victims of attacks. Continue to conduct post-operation
reviews and investigations in cooperation with the Afghan
Government in cases where civilian casualties have occurred.
• Promote transparency, accountability and better
relations with affected Afghan civilians and communities
through the prompt and public release of all ISAF findings
on incidents involving civilian casualties, follow-up
accountability and disciplinary measures and systematic
provision of compensation and redress.
• Continue
working with ANSF to enhance their civilian casualty
mitigation, reporting and analysis capacity by supporting
the establishment of a Civilian Casualty Mitigation Team
within ANSF.
• Ensure that ANSF are sufficiently
resourced, trained and equipped to command, control and
effectively conduct counter-IED operations and IED-disposal,
including exploitation IED Exploitation is the
identification, collection, processing and dissemination of
information gathered at an IED incident site in order to
gain actionable intelligence, to improve counter-IED
procedures and methods, to decrease the resources of
insurgents and to support prosecutions. It includes
preservation, identification and recovery of IED components
for technical, forensic and biometric examination and
analysis and is carried out by authorized specialist
facilities. IED exploitation is a critical component of
effective and sustainable counter-IED measures. *
IED Exploitation is the identification, collection,
processing and dissemination of information gathered at an
IED incident site in order to gain actionable intelligence,
to improve counter-IED procedures and methods, to decrease
the resources of insurgents and to support prosecutions. It
includes preservation, identification and recovery of IED
components for technical, forensic and biometric examination
and analysis and is carried out by authorized specialist
facilities. IED exploitation is a critical component of
effective and sustainable counter-IED measure.
• Ensure full hand-over and training of ANSF on
tactical directives, procedures and best practices that have
been found to increase civilian protection successfully.
The full report is available on the OHCHR website at:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AsiaRegion/Pages/HRReports.aspx
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ENDS