Nearly 1,800 Afghan common people were killed or wounded in the first three months of 2021 during fighting between government forces and Taliban rebels notwithstanding efforts to find peace, the United Nations said in new findings on Wednesday.
The fighting has risen in several parts of Afghanistan in current weeks while the peace process between both battling sides has made no improvement notwithstanding international calls to decrease violence.
It comes a significant time for Afghanistan as President Joe Biden plans to withdraw the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, twenty years to the day after the al Qaeda attacks that triggered America’s longest war.
From January to the end of March, 573 common men were killed and 1,210 injured, a 29 per cent increase over the same period last year, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report.
“Every possible opportunity for peace must be seized. If levels of violence are not immediately reduced, thousands of Afghan civilians will continue to be killed and injured by fellow Afghans in 2021,” said Deborah Lyons, U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan.
The Taliban rioters were responsible for 43.5 percent of common men mishaps while government troops caused 25 percent, UNAMA said.
Most of the rest came in the crossfire, or were caused by Islamic State militants or “undetermined” anti-government or pro-government elements, it said.
The report also says that there is a 37 per cent increase in the number of women killed and injured and a 23 per cent increase in child casualties compared with the first quarter of 2020.
As per the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission’s annual report last year, there were 8,500 common men casualties in 2020, including 2,958 deaths.
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