AFGHANISTAN: 250 Afghan civilians killed, hurt in week’s action: Red Cross
Posted by warvictims on July 10, 2008
By Agence France Presse
More than 250 Afghan civilians have been killed or injured in five days of rebel attacks and military action, the Red Cross said Wednesday, calling all sides in the growing conflict to take more care.
The latest incidents include separate military air strikes in two eastern provinces on July 4 and July 6 and a suicide car bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on Monday that killed 41 people.
President Hamid Karzai, the Afghan parliament and the UN representative Kai Eide have all expressed concern about the civilian tolls.
“At least 250 civilians are reported to have been killed or injured in various incidents since 4 July,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement, adding it “deplores” this high number.
“We call on all parties to the conflict, in the conduct of their military operations, to distinguish at all times between civilians and fighters and to take constant care to spare civilians,” ICRC Kabul chief Franz Rauchenstein said.
All sides were obliged by international humanitarian law to not target civilians unless they were taking a direct part in fighting, he said in the statement.
The Red Cross was in contact with government forces, the international military deployments and armed opposition to remind them of their obligations under international humanitarian law, it said.
Monday’s suicide bombing of the Indian embassy was the deadliest in Kabul and left nearly 150 people wounded. Four Indian nationals, two of them senior diplomats, were among the 41 dead.
The insurgent Taliban group, behind a wave of suicide attacks in Afghanistan, denied responsibility.
Afghan government officials say July 6 air strikes by the US-led coalition in the eastern province of Nangarhar struck a wedding party, killing 27 civilians including the bride. The coalition says only militants died.
The ICRC said several of the injured civilians underwent surgery at its hospital in the provincial capital of Jalalabad.
The US-led force also rejects claims by locals that 15 civilians, including two doctors and two midwives, were killed in similar air strikes in the northeast province of Nuristan on July 4.
Karzai has ordered investigations into both incidents.
The Afghan parliament said after a special meeting Monday that civilian casualties in military action could not be tolerated and threatened to provoke a backlash against international troops here to help the government.
Civilians are regularly caught in the crossfire of the insurgency launched after the hardline Islamic Taliban regime was removed from power in late 2001 in a US-led invasion.
Figures of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission were that 327 civilians had been killed in insurgency-linked violence this year to June, most of them in rebel attacks, a commissioner told AFP.
“This is appalling for us,” Ahmad Fahim Hakim told AFP. “There is no respect for implementation of international humanitarian law from all who are involved.”
The United Nations issued a far higher figure last month, saying nearly 700 Afghan civilians had lost their lives, about two-thirds in militant attacks and about 255 in military operations.
NATO and US-led military forces have several operations under way across the country to try to thwart the rebels.
One in the southernmost district of Garmser on the border with Pakistan had killed 400 insurgents since late April, a US Marine commander said Wednesday.
There have also been allegations of civilian casualties in that operation but they have not been confirmed by government.
