Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on Tuesday said that 1396 marked one of the deadliest years for civilians in Afghanistan.
The AIHRC said the majority of people killed as a result of suicide attacks, explosions and battles between government forces and insurgents were civilians.
According to the AIHRC, from tens of thousands of civilians either killed or wounded during the violence, 2,000 of the victims were Afghan children.
Malika was one young Afghan girl who was working on the streets to help her family. She was killed in one of Kabul’s heavily-guarded areas in Wazir Akbar Khan during a suicide bombing.
“It was 4:14pm when the suicide attack happened, I went there, but they did not allow me, but Malika had been killed and we received her body from the hospital,” said Malika’s father Khan Mohammad.
“Every night I remember her words and smiles, we were working together and were going to school together,” said the victim’s brother Samir.
Based on UN statistics, over 3,000 Afghan civilians were killed this past solar year and more than 7,000 others were wounded.
“We are deeply concerned about the killing and wounding of civilians, unfortunately the majority of victims were civilians; this year, over 2,000 children were killed,” said AIHRC spokesman Bilal Sediqqi.
So far no exact figure has been published on the number of people who were left disabled due to the conflict in 1396.