Afghans protest against killing of 15 civilians

KABUL, Afghanistan - Dozens of Afghans on Sunday staged a demonstration against killing of civilians in an alleged air raid by the government forces.

At least 15 civilians were killed in the Nimroz province bordering Iran a day earlier following an airstrike by the government forces, local officials said.

Naimatull Siddiqui, a member of the provincial council, told Anadolu Agency that the incident took place in the Khash Rod district. He said women and children were among civilians killed in the air raid.

The provincial governor’s office had said in a statement earlier in the day that 12 members of the Taliban’s so-called “red unit” were killed in the raid.

On Friday, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission confirmed that an aerial raid by the government forces killed five civilians, including three children, in the restive Helmand province.

“Based on the initial findings of the Independent Human Rights Commission, in the aerial raid on the Taliban in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, a residential house was hit that resulted in killing of five civilians, including three children, and injuring five others,” it said in a statement.

The Taliban and Afghan government resumed crucial talks over the agenda of long-due intra-Afghan talks in the Qatari capital Doha on Saturday.

The talks are aimed at ending the nearly two-decade-long conflict following a landmark peace deal between the US and the Taliban inked in February last year that calls for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan.

The on-and-off peace talks have failed to slow down civilian casualties in Afghanistan with almost 6,000 civilian casualties (over 2,000 civilians were killed and some 3,800 others were injured) from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2020, according to the UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan.