Afghan Gov’t questions UN report on civilian causalities record

Afghanistan Executive Office questions the recent report of United Nations (UN) on increase of Afghan civilian casualties that hit a high record in 2015.

Spokesman of Executive Officer was said to consider the recent report of UN is not precise; citing the report should has been fully identified and searched.

Ahmad Jawid Faisal, spokesman for executive office claims that the report is not credible due to unknown causes of Afghan civilian causalities.

“Obviously, it is questioning, when the United Nations does not have any information about 17 percent of civilian causalities causes,” said Ahmad Jawid Faisal, spokesman of Executive Office.

Meanwhile, the Executive Office’s press office believes that the armed Taliban group was the main responsible for the most Afghan civilian causalities.

“According to the information of the Afghan government, the armed Taliban group had the most attacks against civilians in the past year,” added Faisal.

Taliban suicide attacks and a fierce battle for the northern city of Kunduz made 2015 the worst year for Afghan civilian casualties since the United Nations began tracking the data.

The United Nations documented 3,545 civilians killed and 7,457 injured last year, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the United Nations Human Rights Office said in a report presented at a news conference in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The total casualty figure, 11,002, was 4 percent above the 2014 level. The number of civilian injuries rose 9 percent, though there were 4 percent fewer deaths.

Battles between insurgents and Afghan government forces or their affiliated militias produced the largest number of civilian deaths and injuries, the United Nations found, followed by improvised explosive devices.

Suicide attacks and “complex attacks” — in which Taliban attackers detonate explosives, then send in gunmen on suicide missions — also contributed to civilian casualties, as did “targeted and deliberate killings” on both sides of the conflict.

About one-quarter of all the civilian dead and wounded were children and about a tenth were women.