UN Report: Civilian Causalities in Afghanistan was a Record High in 2015

Afghanistan had a record high number of civilian causalities in 2015 as the war against the Taliban continued to wreak havoc onto the country, a United Nations report said on Sunday.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Human Rights Office, a total of 11,002 civilians, which represent a four percent increase from 2014, were affected by the war with 3,545 deaths and 7,457 injuries. The report calculated that the number of injuries increased by nine percent from 2014 while the number of deaths fell by four percent.

The UN's secretary general's representative for the country, Nicholas Haysom, said at the news conference in the capital of Kabul that the numbers, which are the highest to be recorded by the UNAMA since the agency first started tracking the numbers in 2009, still do not "reflect the real horror of the phenomenon."

Haysom added, reported by the New York Times, "The real cost we are talking about in these figures is measured in the maimed bodies of children, the communities who have to live with loss, the grief of colleagues and relatives, the families who make do without a breadwinner, the parents who grieve for lost children, the children who grieve for lost parents."

The report found that the number of female casualties increased by 37 percent to 10 percent and the number of causalities in children jumped by 14 percent to a total of 25 percent.

The leading cause of death was getting caught in the crossfire followed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The third and fourth leading causes of death were suicide bombers and complex attacks, respectively.

Ground attacks led to 4,137 causalities with 1,115 of them being deaths and IEDs caused 2,356 casualties (713 deaths).

The causes of death or injury were broken down like this:

-62 percent could be attributed to anti-government forces, particularly the Taliban. This percentage was a 10 percent drop from 2014.

-17 percent could be tied to pro-government forces, which included 14 percent by the country's security forces, two percent by international forces and one percent by armed movement groups.

-17 percent could not be attributed to a particular group.

"The people of Afghanistan continue to suffer brutal and unprincipled attacks that are forbidden under international law," said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein. "This is happening with almost complete impunity. The perpetrators of the violations, documented by UNAMA and my staff, must be held to account. And the international community should emphasize far more vigorously that the rights of civilians should be protected."

For more information on the report, "Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict," click here.