Taliban reject UN report on civilian casualties

KABUL militants on Friday rejected a United Nations (UN) report that blamed the militants for 65 percent of civilian casualties in 2017.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Thursday released its annual civilian casualties report, saying more than 10,000 civilians suffered casualties last year.

A total of 10,453 civilian casualties - 3,438 people killed and 7,015 injured - were documented in the 2017 Annual Report released by UNAMA.

The report attributes 65 percent of all casualties to Taliban, Daesh or so called Islamic State (IS), other anti-government elements, and 20 percent to government and international forces and pro-government armed groups.

However, a statement from Taliban received by Pajhwok Afghan News, said, “Despite their obvious crimes, blaming the US for only two percent and Afghan forces for 13 percent of civilian casualties proves that the UNAMA as usual practice a propaganda of deception by hiding facts and it supports the US and Afghan forces,”

Such reports used as propaganda tool against the Taliban while the real factors of Afghanistan tragedy--foreign forces who bombarded Afghanistan for the last 17 years and kill people-- are termed as innocent, the source said.

The statement added that intelligence circles and ‘enemies of the Afghan people’ were used as sources for the UNAMA report while the Taliban’s ‘impartial’ report on civilian casualties published at the end of last year was ignored.

It is regrettable when civilian casualties, a critical and humanitarian issue, used as propaganda, and the UN unfairly providing statistics about civilian casualties, Taliban said.

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