Protesters march through the Afghan capital of Kabul on Wednesday, November 11, 2015, carrying the coffins of seven ethnic Hazaras who were allegedly killed by the Taliban and calling for a new government that can ensure security in the country.
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Demonstrators gathered in west Kabul yesterday and walked through the rain, bearing the coffins draped in green to the gates of the presidential palace, where organisers said they were planning to stage a sit-in until their demands were met by the government.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Kabul on Wednesday to demand justice after the brutal killings of seven members of a Shiite minority group.
This footage shows large groups demonstrating and coffins being carried by men and women.
The case of the Hazaras, whose beheaded bodies were found Saturday in the country’s southeastern province of Zabul, appears to have galvanized many in war-battered Afghanistan.
A spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said hostage taking had become a serious issue across the country.
The killings in the southern province of Zabul occurred amid fighting between rival Taliban factions and Islamic State militants that has underlined the risk of further fragmentation, complicating any reopening of the peace process and creating the risk of more generalized anarchy.
The protesters, estimated at more than 10,000, were demanding stronger government action to combat what many Afghans fear is a rise in sectarian violence.
They had been kidnapped in neighbouring Ghazni province up to six months earlier.
“Today they kill us, tomorrow they kill you”, chanted the protesters. “Whatever happened to those women and children can happen to us as well”. Afghanistan’s spy agency dismissed Taliban claims that affiliates of the Islamic State group were behind the killings.
President Ghani also has condemned the brutal killings and has ordered authorities to investigate the incident and bring those responsible to justice. Nicholas Haysom, secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, said, “These senseless murders may amount to war crimes and the perpetrators must be held accountable”.
Abdullah’s deputy spokesperson Asif Ashna has resigned over what he called the government’s incompetency.
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The primarily Shia Hazara have lengthy confronted persecution in Afghanistan, with hundreds massacred by the Taliban and al Qaeda within the Nineteen Nineties, however a collection of murders and kidnappings this yr has stoked a temper of rising despair.
