AFGHANISTAN: UN REPORT DOCUMENTS STEADY INCREASE IN CIVILIAN DEATHS

EURASIA INSIGHT

Aunohita Mojumdar 8/04/09



Civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased sharply during the first six months of 2009, according to a mid-year review conducted by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

The UNAMA review found civilian deaths increased by 24 percent during the first half of this year in comparison to the same period in 2008. The report also indicated that existing factors on the ground are likely to cause civilian casualties to keep on rising.

The UN only counts civilian fatalities when victims can be verified as non-combatants. In cases where there is even slight doubt, or where the UN cannot corroborate the status of the victim, it does not list the individual as a civilian casualty. The final UN tally is therefore likely to be lower than the actual number of civilian fatalities.

The mid-year review, released on July 31, found that the number of civilians killed by anti-government elements (AGEs) and pro-government forces had both increased, though the proportionate increase of deaths caused by AGEs, including the Taliban and other insurgent groups, was far greater. The findings may heighten anxiety as Afghanistan goes through the final weeks of campaigning before the country holds a presidential election, scheduled for August 20.

The UN attributes the rise in civilian casualties to the surge of foreign troops and the insurgent response, as well as stepped up operations by pro-government forces in civilian residential areas. Improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks by anti-government elements and air strikes carried out by international military forces were identified as the major causes of civilian deaths, which rose from 818 during the first half of 2008 to 1,013 in the corresponding period this year, according to the UN. A close reading of figures however reveals the numbers don’t provide the complete picture

In what was perhaps the single largest incident of civilian casualties since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, for example, a May 4 American air strike in Herat Province’s Bala Baluk District killed 63 civilians according to UNAMA. That figure excluded all men from the total, counting only the women and children. With difficulty in determining whether the "men of military age" were combatants or non-combatants, the UN figures still exclude all men killed in the Bala Baluk attack, even though the incident occurred three months ago.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission found that as many as 97 civilians may have been killed in the May 4 attack, 76 of whom it said were women and children, the commission’s spokesperson Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.

The discrepancy in numbers suggests that UN figures are, at best, incomplete. Acknowledging this possibility, Norah Niland, the head of UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit, the office behind the report, told EurasiaNet that, "we can only record and report figures that we have triple checked. Our focus is on trying to mitigate the impact of war on civilians. We also focus on the circumstances in which civilians are killed so that avoidable deaths do not occur." Niland acknowledged that figures reported in the regular UNAMA reports on civilian casualties may well underestimate the actual number killed.

The UN report found that civilian deaths caused by anti-government elements had almost doubled since last year. AGE attacks on humanitarian workers and government employees, moreover, appeared to be impairing Afghans’ access to humanitarian assistance.

Even so, casualties caused by international forces appear to generate the most public anger. Tolerance among Afghans for civilian casualties caused by international military forces is steadily decreasing, making every small incident a potential tinderbox. Highlighting the trend, a rally of clerics in Laghman Province in eastern Afghanistan on August 1 called for the government to set the date for withdrawal of foreign troops.

In response to such public sentiments, one of President Hamid Karzai’s main reelection promises is to rewrite agreements with international troops operating in Afghanistan.

As fighting intensifies ahead of Election Day, the UN report predicts a further climb in civilian causalities. Recent Taliban statements calling for fighters to place themselves among civilians, insurgent promises of violence under "Operation Victory" in response to the Obama Administration’s troop surge, and promises of attacks on the presidential and provincial council elections are immediate causes for concern, the report says. These factors "raise the prospect of a further intensification of the conflict in Afghanistan. Given the pattern of the conflict so far, further significant casualties in the coming months are likely" the UN states.