Record number of civilians killed in Afghan suicide attacks last year
A surge in suicide attacks and bombings in Afghanistan killed a record number of civilians last year – almost 2,300 – the UN said yesterday.
This is more than any previous year in the conflict.
The figures come as militants ramp-up assaults on urban areas after President Donald Trump said in August that the American presence in Afghanistan would remain open-ended and the US military stepped up air strikes on rural militant strongholds.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) said civilian deaths across the country fell by 9 per cent overall last year, with 10,453 casualties including 3,438 deaths and 7,015 wounded.
But as the Taliban and ISIL have come under more pressure they have increasingly carried out indiscriminate assaults in cities. As a result, casualties from suicide bombings and attacks jumped by 17 per cent.
It was the fourth consecutive year that more than 10,000 civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan.
It is no longer the fighting but attacks and bombings, often in crowded urban centres, that kill and maim the most often, with nearly 2,300 deaths – 22 per cent of the total last year – coming from such assaults.
“2017 recorded the highest number of civilian casualties from suicide and complex attacks in a single year in Afghanistan,” the report said, with 605 killed and 1,690 wounded from such incidents.
The capital remained a top target, with 16 per cent of all casualties during the year – 1,831 people killed and wounded – occurring in Kabul alone.
“Afghan civilians have been killed going about their daily lives – travelling on a bus, praying in a mosque, simply walking past a building that was targeted,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in the report.
“When we see civilians being deliberately targeted, you wonder how long that this [has] to go on,” Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN’s special representative in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul.
Militants claim to represent Afghan interests but are “killing people in the most appalling manner, creating terror and suffering”, he said. Things have not improved so far this year and he said the UN was concerned there would be “greater harm this year”.
Since January 20, militants have stormed a luxury hotel, bombed a crowded street and raided a military compound in Kabul, killing more than 130 people.
The majority of the victims last year were killed or wounded by anti-government insurgents, according to the report.
However, pro-government forces, including international troops, were responsible for 20 per cent of the civilian casualties – a 7 per cent increase from 2016.
The casualties by pro-government forces were mainly caused by the increase in aerial bombings, Unama said.
More than 28,000 civilians have been killed and more than 52,000 wounded in Afghanistan since 2009, according to the UN.