Violence against civilians surges in Afghanistan after peace talks: UN
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan escalated sharply after peace talks began last year, the United Nations said in a report released on Tuesday, calling for a cease-fire as negotiators met for the first time after weeks of inaction.
Us-brokered peace talks began in September but progress has since slowed and violence has risen with uncertainty over whether international forces will pull out troops by May as originally planned, Reuters reported.
Civilian casualties were 8,820 in 2020, according to the annual report of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). That was 15% lower than the previous year, but the report’s authors noted with alarm a sharp uptick and historically high civilian casualties in the final three months of 2020, when peace talks began.
Last year “could have been the year of peace in Afghanistan. Instead, thousands of Afghan civilians perished,” said Deborah Lyons, head of UNAMA, reiterating calls for a cease-fire which has been repeatedly rejected by the Taliban. “Parties refusing to consider a cease-fire must recognize the devastating consequences.”
The Taliban on Tuesday issued a response critical of the report, saying “the concerns, precise information and accurate details that were shared by us have not been taken into account”.
The report said that for the first time since records began, deaths and injuries had escalated in the final three
months of the year from the previous three months. Casualties for the fourth quarter were up 45% compared with the same period in 2019.
On Tuesday, Afghanistan began its first COVID-19 vaccinations, administering doses initially to security force members, health workers and journalists,
in a campaign that may face challenges from the sharp rise in violence.
The war-damaged country received 500,000 doses of Astrazeneca’s vaccine from the Serum Institute of India (SII), which is producing the vaccine for midand low-income countries, earlier this month.
In a ceremony at the presidential palace, Acting Health Minister Waheed Majroh said the vaccines would be provided to 250,000 people, mostly from the security, health, education and media sectors.
Taliban militants have announced their backing for the vaccination campaign.
Iran expanded its energy pipeline network by 933 kilometers as the country aims to reduce costs related to the transportation of oil and gas products.
Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh inaugurated three new pipelines to bring the total length of the country’s energy pipeline network to 13,000 kilometers, Press TV reported.
The new pipelines will carry oil products between locations in central Iran and in northwest of the country. They have cost 80 trillion rials plus €98 million (a total of $437.6 million), according to Zanganeh.
The minister said energy pipeline capacity in Iran has reached 1.5 million barrels per day of crude and petroleum products.
He said the launch of new pipelines in Iran will lead to a major reduction in transportation costs for energy products while it will mean lower illegal activity in a country rife with fuel trafficking because of low prices.
Zanganeh said expansion of energy pipelines has also caused a major boom in domestic pipe manufacturing and other related industries.
He said the government will push ahead with other major pipeline plans, including one that will transfer fuel produced in Iran’s largest gas condensate refinery on the Persian Gulf to areas in central Iran.
The minister also touched upon Goureh-jask pipeline, the largest pipeline project in Iran’s oil history which in being constructed along the country’s southern coastline to transport crude from westernmost areas of the Persian Gulf to a port located just outside of the Strait of Hormuz.
He said pressure testing has started on parts of the pipeline, adding that it will be fully ready in early months of the next Iranian year beginning March 21.