Insurgents, government forces and international troops all contribute to highest total in five years since records began

Last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in Afghanistan, the UN said in a report on Wednesday, with more civilians killed in 2014 than since the agency began compiling figures in 2009. While Nato has ended its combat mission, and Barack Obama has declared that America’s longest war is ending responsibly, fighting in the country is intensifying.

“In communities across Afghanistan, increased ground fighting among parties to the conflict and more IED attacks exacted a heavy toll on Afghan civilians,” said the top UN envoy, Nicholas Haysom.

The report (pdf) documented 3,699 civilian deaths in 2014, the highest death toll since the UN began keeping systematic record in 2009. Another 6,849 people were injured, bringing the number of civilian casualties to 10,548, a 22% jump from last year. The total civilian death toll after more than a decade of war is now almost 18,000.

Children were the hardest hit: 714 were killed and 1,760 wounded, an increase in of 40% on 2013. In addition, 298 women were killed and 611 injured.



The rise in numbers has been attributed to a surge in battles between government forces and the armed opposition, mainly the Taliban. And while the war, for Afghans, is not over, it is clearly morphing. With international forces largely withdrawn from the provinces, insurgents have taken the fight back to the battlefield where indiscriminate weapons such as mortars and rockets prevail.

As a result, 2014 saw a 54% increase in civilian casualties from fighting, while the number of victims from improvised explosive devices, such as roadside bombs, remained almost the same.

The UN attributes 72% of the civilian casualties to insurgents and 14% to government forces. As the army and police have assumed responsibility for security, insurgents have moved the fight closer to district centres and residential areas, increasing the risk to civilians. In late December, for instance, on the day Nato ended its combat mission, soldiers in Helmand misfired a rocket and killed at least 20 women at a wedding party.

Insurgents have also targeted civilians directly, as with the killing of 34 mine clearers and the torching of houses belonging to government officials. Most recently, on Monday, a female provincial council member died from wounds sustained in a bomb blast in Nangarhar province last week.

The international forces are, according to the UN, responsible for only 2% of civilian casualties. Of the 101 people killed by foreign forces, five them died in a drone strike in Parwan in December, along with 12 insurgents.

The consequences of the fighting go beyond just casualties, however. 2014 saw an 8% increase in people displaced by conflict, bringing Afghanistan’s overall number of internally displaced people over 800,000, said the UN.

In the report, the UN called on both the armed opposition and government forces to safeguard civilians. “Parties to the conflict should understand the impact of their actions and take responsibility for them, uphold the values they claim to defend, and make protecting civilians their first priority,” Haysom said.

