Afghanistan war victims left without justice, UN says

Most civilian victims of Afghanistan's 2001-2021 war have been left “without justice, reparation or even acknowledgement” of their suffering, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said Tuesday.

UNAMA said more than 40,000 civilians were killed and 77,000 wounded in attacks by Taliban insurgents, the Islamic State group and during operations by the Afghan Republic's armed forces or the US-led international coalition.

The mission said it has documented civilian casualties since 2009 in one of the most exhaustive studies of victims of the 2001-2021 war. It said 95% of nearly 200 victims it interviewed experienced psychological harm, including memory loss, depression and suicidal thoughts.

UNAMA said most interviewed victims who tried to obtain justice were unsuccessful. It said a 2006 action plan for “Peace, Reconciliation and Justice” was never fully implemented, and that the 2020 US-Taliban peace deal did not include specific provisions for victims' rights, justice or accountability.

After returning to power, Taliban authorities passed an amnesty law and have shown no public intent to prosecute wartime violations of humanitarian law, UNAMA said. The Taliban government told UNAMA it had distributed $695 million to families of martyrs, widows and orphans since 2021.

UNAMA said domestic and international efforts to hold perpetrators accountable have been limited and have faced many barriers.

The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into the Afghanistan conflict, but its prosecutor later narrowed the focus to alleged crimes by the Taliban and Islamic State because of “limited resources” and “the gravity and continuing nature of the crimes”, the court told AFP.

The UN report also cited limited international accountability efforts. A former Australian special forces officer has been charged with war crimes in Afghanistan, a Dutch court ordered compensation for relatives of victims of a 2007 airstrike deemed unlawful, and a British independent inquiry opened in 2022 is still continuing.