Geneva: The UN has said there are “credible allegations” of more than 100 extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in August, with most blamed on the country’s new rulers.
UN deputy rights chief Nada Al-Nashif said she was deeply alarmed by continuing reports of such killings, despite a general amnesty announced by the Taliban after their August 15 takeover.
“Between August and November, we received credible allegations of more than 100 killings of former Afghan national security forces and others associated with the former government,” she told the UN Human Rights Council.
“At least 72 of these killings,” she said, were “attributed to the Taliban”.
“In several cases, the bodies were publicly displayed. This has exacerbated fear among this sizeable category of the population,” she said.
Al-Nashif, who presented an update to the council on behalf of UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet, said many members of the jihadist Islamic State-Khorasan group — the main Taliban enemy — had also been killed.
Amnesty said the full scale of the killings remained unknown.
The UN and Amnesty comments came after the United States and other countries condemned the Taliban following a Human Rights Watch report earlier this month documenting 47 summary executions.
