By Xinhua,
Kabul : Continued militancy and conflicts have claimed more lives and undermined humanitarian assistance in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes noted.
“According to the UNAMA figures, this year we have recorded some 698 civilian casualties so far, that is from January to June, compared with 430 for the same period last year,” a transcript of the official released by UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Monday said.
The UN dignitary arrived in Afghanistan last Thursday and visited some provinces and talked to officials from Afghan government and international troops as well as the locals.
He emphasized that 422 out of nearly 700 of the victims were killed by anti-government elements and 255 others had been killed by the Government or international military forces.
He also added that 21 others had lost their lives where the origin of their deaths is unclear.
The world body’s chief on humanitarian affair expressed concerns over the security situation in the war-torn nation and added that continued insecure incidents and food insecurity are the serious problems need to be addressed.
“I can say that we do regard the situation as serious and I believe that we need to step up our humanitarian efforts, both the coordination of those efforts and our capacity to address the various problems in the future,” he stressed.
The official added that since January this year, there had been11 armed attacks against commercial vehicles and have lost a total of 340 tons of food supplied by the UN world Food program (WFP) while such attacks are completely unacceptable and should stop.
Taliban-led insurgency and conflicts in Afghanistan besides forcing several aid agencies to suspend or halt their activities in the militancy-plagued southern provinces have left more than 2,000 people dead over the past six months.