A U.N. report says pro-Afghan government and international military forces were responsible for more civilian deaths in the first three months of this year than the Taliban.
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan called the death toll "unprecedented." The mission called for immediate action to stop the "rising civilian harm from air and search [operations]."
According to the quarterly U.N. report, between the start of January and the end of March this year, pro-Afghan government forces — international and local — killed 305 civilians. That's 53% of the total number of civilian deaths. Anti-government forces — the Taliban and ISIS, mostly — killed 227 civilians, 39% of the total number.
To put those numbers in perspective, the overall civilian deaths were actually lower for the first three months of this year than they have been since the same time period in 2013.
And for even more context, a U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan report from last October said civilian deaths between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 of 2018 were up 5% compared to that same period in 2017.
