-
Villagers look at the shattered body of a victim of air strikes in Ganj Abad of Bala Buluk district, in Farah province - Source: Reuters -
Related
Afghan villagers mourned relatives buried in mass graves after
US-led air strikes that the Red Cross said killed dozens and local
officials said may have killed more than 100 civilians.
US and Afghan officials rushed to investigate the incident, which
may overshadow President Hamid Karzai's first meeting with US
President Barack Obama since Obama's election.
Villagers who survived the bombing of houses packed with terrified
civilians said dozens of members of one extended family alone had
died.
They wept as they spoke of orphaned children and burying loved
ones' fragmented remains.
"My son and my daughter in-law have been killed and left me with a
13-month-old baby," said Gul Bibi from Geraani village.
"Their remains were buried in a mass grave with others, and I
didn't even have a chance to see his face for the last time because
his body was blown apart," she sobbed.
The bombings, that lasted around an hour, killed 50 members of
neighbour Sayed Azam's extended family, Azam said.
"There were Taliban in the area, and fierce fighting during the day
but it ended when it was dark. People thought the fighting was over
when suddenly bombings began," he said.
Rohul Amin, governor of Farah province, where the bombing took
place late on Monday and fighting raged into Tuesday, said he
feared 100 civilians had been killed.
Provincial police chief Abdul Ghafar Watandar said the death
toll could be even higher.
If confirmed, those even higher figures could make the incident the
single deadliest for Afghan civilians since the campaign to topple
the Taliban in 2001.
Karzai called the civilian deaths unjustifiable and unacceptable,
and would raise them with Obama at their meeting in Washington, his
office said.
He dispatched a joint Afghan-US delegation to investigate.
Civilian casualties are a source of great strain between Washington
and Kabul at a time of rising violence by Islamist Taliban
insurgents and with US troop numbers due to be more than doubled by
the end of the year.
Dozens of bodies, houses destroyed
Jessica Barry, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the
Red Cross, said the Geneva-based group had sent a team which
reached the scene of the air strikes.
"There were women and there were children who were killed. It
seemed they were trying to shelter in houses when they were hit,"
she said.
The team saw houses destroyed and dozens of bodies, providing
the first international confirmation of the incident.
Among the dead was a first-aid volunteer for Afghanistan's Red
Crescent, killed along with 13 members of his family, she said.
The Red Cross could not determine whether fighters were among
the dead, she added.
Survivors said they were frustrated that Afghan and foreign teams
that visited the village had not offered any help.
"They just photographed us and that was it," said 60-year-old Haji
Mohammad Shah, who lost nine family members including his wife,
daughter and grandchildren.
"We don't want anything from the government or those who killed
them, nothing can replace my family," he added, bursting into
tears.
US forces in Afghanistan acknowledge they were involved in fighting
and air strikes in the province's Bala Boluk district, which began
on Monday and continued into Tuesday after Taliban militants seized
a village and clashed with Afghan troops.
Watandar, the provincial police chief, said Taliban guerrillas had
used the civilians as shields, herding them into houses in the
villages of Geraani and Ganj Abad, that were then struck by US-led
coalition warplanes.
"The fighting was going on in another village, but the Taliban
escaped to these two villages, where they used people as human
shields.
The air strikes killed about 120 civilians and destroyed 17
houses," he said, adding the toll was imprecise.
Villagers trucked about 30 dead bodies to the provincial capital
Farah City on Tuesday to prove that dozens had been killed in the
strikes, said governor Amin.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi confirmed there had been
fighting and said all casualties from air strikes were
civilians.
"The government and foreign troops must compensate the affected
people, we don't want apologies any more," he said by telephone
from an undisclosed location.
US and NATO forces in Afghanistan have established new drills they
say are intended to reduce the number of civilian casualties,
following outrage over an incident last year in which Afghan and UN
investigators said US strikes killed 90 people.
World News Video
-
Dangerous rush to Everest summit (1:59)
-
Dozens killed in Syrian massacre (2:09)
-
'King of Romance' competes in Eurovision (1:46)
