Wednesday August 28, 2019
Kabul (BNA) Chaired by Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the meeting of high level working group on protection of civilians was held at Sapidar Palace yesterday.
According to BNA report, in the meeting, minister of interior Masoud Andarabi briefed related to overall security situation of the country, saying that various meetings have been held at the ministry of interior to discuss prevention of civilian casualties. Andarabi further said that Taliban were using civilians as shield while attacking on ANDSF, stressing that MoI has found that Taliban were making civilians to take their dead bodies to the streets to protest against the government. Afterwards, representatives of the ministry of defense, NDS and other relevant organs shared their concerns and suggestions with chief executive, saying besides that they made efforts to prevent from civilian casualties, there were still some problems in this regard. According to reports released by UNAMA and Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) more than 1366 people have been killed and more than 2446 wounded due to violence and security incidents since the beginning of 2019.
Both UNAMA and AIHRC considered increasing civilian casualties as catastrophe, stressing that Afghanistan government in close cooperation of the international community should find a solution for prevention of civilian casualties in the country. They called on all parties to the conflict to pay serious attention to protection of the civilians and health centers. After hearing suggestions and reports delivered in the meeting, Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah Abdullah thanked the country’s defense and security forces and the people for defending the country and said no to terrorists. Dr. Abdullah instructed the MoD, MoI and NDS to solve problems of their personnel and do their job in accordance to needs and demands of provincial officials in order to prevent from civilian casualties in the country. The country’s Chief Executive also instructed all members of the high level group on protection of civilians to jointly work to prevent from civilian casualties in all provinces of the country.
