The report also showed that 1,500 children were killed and wounded in the conflict during the first six months of the year, the highest-ever toll the United Nations has recorded.
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UNAMA highlighted that during the first half of this year, it recorded 157,987 “newly displaced” people, a 10 percent increase on the same period last year, bringing the total estimate of people displaced by conflict to 1.2 million.
The report said that growing air strikes by Afghan forces also contributed to the rise in civilian casualties as new aircraft were deployed.
More than 80 people were killed and another 231 were wounded when suicide bombers triggered two explosions at a rally by hundreds of ethnic Hazaras on Saturday, according to an e-mailed statement via the Afghanistan Interior Ministry.
ISIS claimed responsibility, fueling concerns that the extremists, who have had a presence in the remote eastern border regions near Pakistan for the past year, plan to raise their profile in Afghanistan as they rack up losses in their heartland in Iraq and Syria. It is the first instance that Afghan air strikes have caused more casualties than strikes by global parties. “History and the collective memory of the Afghan people will judge leaders of all parties to this conflict by their actual conduct”.
One in three of those casualties was a child.
“So far in 2016, children were killed and injured primarily from ground fighting and then explosive remnants of war”, she said.
Since the withdrawal of global troops from Afghanistan began after 2011 and the official end of Nato’s combat mission in December 2014, the number of civilian casualties has risen year-on-year. This includes “those who identify as ‘Taliban, ‘” according to the report.
Casualties caused by pro-government forces increased 47% over the same period previous year, the United Nations said.
As well as the risk of dragging Afghanistan into Islamic State’s wider campaign in the Middle East, it raised the spectre of sectarian violence, something Afghanistan, a majority Sunni country, has largely been spared during decades of war.
Air strikes by worldwide forces, comprised mostly of American warplanes, caused 38 deaths and 12 injuries among civilians, the United Nations reported.
“Parties to the conflict must cease the deliberate targeting of civilians and the use of heavy weaponry in civilian-populated areas”, Zeid said.
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Though ground engagements continued to account for the highest percentage of casualties, 38 percent, complex and suicide attacks accounted for 20 percent, up from 17 percent during the last six months of 2015.
