KABUL — Last year was the deadliest for civilians caught up in Afghanistan’s war since the United Nations began keeping records in 2009, the world body said Wednesday — a harbinger of the new dynamic of the conflict, in which insurgents and Afghan forces increasingly engage in face-to-face battles.
By almost any metric, 2014 was a grim year. Civilian casualties, including both deaths and injuries, were up 22 percent from the previous record set in 2013, and they surpassed 10,000 for the first time since the United Nations’ record-keeping began. The number of women and children injured or killed also hit new highs.
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The militias, which President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to disband, remain highly controversial in Afghanistan. The United Nations said there had been a significant increase in human rights abuses perpetrated by these groups, especially in the country’s north, northeast and southeast, where they often operate in areas with little government presence. The United Nations report decried a “failure by the government of Afghanistan to hold these armed groups accountable.”
The Khanabad district of Kunduz Province, where anywhere from 900 to 1,200 militiamen operate, was particularly problematic, the report said. On Aug. 4, members of one of the pro-government militias killed a teacher in the district for publicly opposing tax collection, the report said.
