In its annual report about civilian casualties in Afghanistan, UNAMA has stated that, in 2016, civilian casualties have risen 3% compared to 2015, which had been unprecedented since the beginning of the documentation of civilian casualties by UNAMA in 2009.
This report, released on 6th February 2017, states that 11418 civilians casualties were recorded in 2016, 3498 of which were killed and 7920 were wounded.The report also signifies those responsible for these casualties.
Since 2009, UNAMA records civilian casualties every year and its reports show that civilian fatalities increase annually; but it must be noted that UNAMA has always blamed the government’s armed opposition and the Afghan forces for civilian casualties and has covered the casualties caused by foreign troops.
Here you would read about civilian casualties in the past one and a half-decade, the attribution of responsibility of these casualties, the role of engaged armed groups in civilian casualties and reasons behind the rise in these casualties in 2016.
Civilian casualties (2001-2016)
In 2001, when the US and Coalition forces attacked Afghanistan, the number of civilian casualties increased and reached to about 2375 people. Later-on, from 2002 to 2006, a total of 2422 civilians were killed. It should be noted that these statistics are not put together by any official administration or organ and are collected from various sources by researchers.
UNAMA began documenting civilian casualties in 2007, but, from a methodological point of view, its annual reports in 2007 and 2008 are different than its reports in 2009 and the years after that.
If one studies UNAMA’s annual reports on civilian casualties in Afghanistan, the statistics of the civilian casualties provided by this institution would lead one to conclude that whenever insecurity has increased or the war has intensified between the Taliban on the one side and the Afghan Government and foreign forces on the other side, civilian casualties have also increased. After 2007, civilian casualties have increased every year (except 2012). (see the Chart-1 for further information). In 2007 there were 1523 civilian casualties while in 2015 this number increased to 11002.
Overall, based on the statistics of the UN, from 2007 to the end of 2016, 73793 civilian casualties have been recorded in Afghanistan.
Chart-1: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan (2009-2016)
Source: UNAMA’s annual reports on civilian casualties in Afghanistan (2009-2015)
Attribution of responsibility for civilian casualties
Besides providing statistics of civilian casualties, UNAMA also attributes the responsibility for these casualties and makes some recommendations to the engaged groups to decrease these casualties.
It should be noted that in these statistics UNAMA has not included those incidents of civilian casualties which were not verified or were out of the reach of UNAMA; and neither are the casualties caused by drone attacks and the foreign forces included in these statistics.
UNAMA’s 2016 annual report shows that the responsibility for 61% of civilian casualties goes to Anti-Government Elements (mainly the Taliban) and 24% to Pro-Government Elements (20% Afghan security forces, 2% pro-government militias and 2% foreign forces). The institution has attributed 10% of civilian casualties to the engagements on the ground between Anti-Government and Pro-Government elements, because it was not possible to attribute these casualties to one particular party. 5% remaining casualties are not attributed to any party because these casualties were mainly due to the exploded explosives.
In the statistics of UNAMA, only 2% of civilian casualties are attributed to foreign forces which is astonishing, because, in 2016, the foreign forces, on the one hand, returned to the battlefield and, on the other hand, increased their drone attacks.
Chart-2: attribution of the responsibility of the civilian casualties (2009-2016)
Source: UNAMA’s annual reports on civilian casualties in Afghanistan (2009-2016)
Women and children casualties (2009-2016)
Based on the statistics of UNAMA, 3512 children casualties were recorded in 2016, 923 of whom were killed and 2589 others were injured. This number marks a 24% increase compared to 2015.
Women casualties show a 2% decrease in 2016 compared to 2015 (1218 women casualties have been documented in 2016, 341 of whom were killed and 877 others were wounded). (See more in Chart-3)
Chart-3: women and children casualties in Afghanistan (2009-2016)
Source: UNAMA’s annual report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan (2009-2016)
Reasons behind the rise of civilian casualties in 2016
Intensification of war on the ground and insecurities, lesser attention of engaged parties to the lives of civilians, the return of foreign forces to the battlefield, airstrikes on residential houses and some other factors are the main factors behind the rise in civilian casualties in 2016.
- Intensification of War: 2016 was a challenging year for both the people and government of Afghanistan. Fight with the government’s armed oppositions increased in this year. On the one hand, the ground battle was intensifies, and on the other hand, foreign forces increased their airstrikes and killed many civilians.
- Explosions and operations of the armed oppositions of the government: another factor behind the rise of civilian casualties in 2016 was group attacks and deadly explosions in Kabul and other major cities of the country. In this year, most of the attacks of the government’s armed oppositions were carried out in areas where people were busy doing their daily chores.
- ISIL: UNAMA’s 2016 report attributes the responsibility of 899 civilian casualties (209 dead and 690 injured) to ISIL in Afghanistan while in 2015 ISIL was reported to have caused 82 civilian casualties (39 dead and 43 injured), which means that in 2016, they have killed and injured ten times more people than in 2015.
- Government’s military operations: UNAMA’s report attributes the responsibility of 20% of civilian casualties to the Afghan forces, while in 2015, it was 17%. The increased civilian casualties were due to the Afghan forces’ airstrikes and their increased aggressive operations without undertaking preventive measures to avoid civilian casualties.
The end