![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
You are in: World: South Asia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
Thursday, 3 January, 2002, 16:14 GMT
Afghanistan's civilian deaths mount
![]() American bombs have reportedly killed thousands of civilians
The number of Afghan civilians killed by US bombs has surpassed the death toll of the 11 September attacks, according to a study by an American academic.
Nearly 3,800 Afghans died between 7 October and 7 December, University of New Hampshire Professor Marc Herold said in a research report.
Professor Herold has been gathering data on civilian casualties since 7 October by culling information from news agencies, major newspapers and first hand accounts. His report, which places the death toll at 3,767, lists the number of casualties, location, type of weapon and source of information. "In fact the figure I came up with is a very, very conservative estimate," Professor Herold said in a radio interview. "I think that a much more realistic figure would be around 5,000. You know for Afghanistan, 3,700 to 5,000 is a really substantial number."
Professor Herold said his calculations are based only on deaths reported in the mainstream media, so would not include those in remote areas of Afghanistan. It also omits those killed indirectly, when air strikes cut off their access to hospitals, food or electricity. Also exempt are bomb victims who later died of their injuries. When there were different casualty figures from the same incident, in 90% of cases Professor Herold chose a lower figure. US military professionals told the Financial Times that the quality of this sort of information must necessarily be mixed. Latest deaths US forces were reported to have killed 106 Afghan civilians when they dropped bombs on the village of Qalaye Naizi, in eastern Afghanistan. Military authorities denied having mistakenly bombed a village, and said the warplanes had targeted a compound used by al-Qaeda.
On 27 December, US bombers were said to have killed 40 civilians in Ghazni, south-west of Kabul. And last month, American warplanes hit a convoy transporting tribal elders to the inauguration of the Afghanistan government in Kabul. About 65 people were killed. Other reported incidents include:
|
![]() |
See also:
![]() Internet links:
![]() The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top South Asia stories now:
![]() ![]() Links to more South Asia stories are at the foot of the page.
![]() |
![]() |
Links to more South Asia stories
|
![]() |
![]() |
^^ Back to top News Front Page | World | UK | UK Politics | Business | Sci/Tech | Health | Education | Entertainment | Talking Point | In Depth | AudioVideo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To BBC Sport>> | To BBC Weather>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII | News Sources | Privacy |