Afghan aid workers for Czech NGO killed in their beds

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, AFGHANISTAN // Gunmen killed nine Afghan employees of a Czech aid organisation in their beds during an overnight raid on Tuesday on their guesthouse in northern Afghanistan, the latest attack targeting humanitarian workers in the country.

It comes as a new report by Brown University warned that almost 100,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime and sparked an insurgency.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the killings in the relatively tranquil Balkh province, but the attack comes as the Taliban intensify their annual spring offensive despite repeated government attempts to reopen peace talks.

The nine victims were employees of People in Need (PIN) – a Czech organisation that has been active in Afghanistan since 2001, delivering humanitarian aid to remote communities in the east and north of the country.

“Those killed in Zari district of Balkh province include two drivers, two guards and five project staff which included a woman,” PIN country director Ross Hollister said.

“They were killed in their beds while they were sleeping,” he added.

Mr Hollister said the organisation has been active in that area since 2002.

PIN condemned the attack, saying that it was “unprecedented in its brutality” and had prompted the organisation to immediately suspend all work in Afghanistan.

“Investigation is ongoing, the identity of the attackers is not known, but according to available information they did not originate from the area, where PIN has been working since 2002,” their website said.

Abdul Razaq Qaderi, the deputy police chief of Balkh, said the police had launched a search operation for the gunmen, believed to be Taliban militants.

Employees of international aid organisations have increasingly come under attack in Afghanistan despite the Taliban espousing an official policy that rejects attacks on humanitarian workers.

The latest attack comes weeks after 14 people – mostly foreigners – were killed in a Taliban attack on a guesthouse in downtown Kabul popular with international aid workers.

Five of them were Afghan employees of aid organisations including ActionAid and the Aga Khan Foundation.

President Ashraf Ghani’s government has drawn criticism for failing to end growing insurgent attacks, which critics partly blame on political infighting and a lengthy delay in appointing a candidate for the crucial post of defence minister.

Meanwhile, the Brown University study – entitled “Costs of War” and produced by the university’s Watson Institute for International Studies – looked at war-related deaths, injuries and displacement in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001 to last year, when international combat troops left Afghanistan.

Along with those killed, it said that another 100,000 people had been wounded in Afghanistan. For both countries, civilian and military deaths total almost 149,000 people killed, with 162,000 seriously wounded.

The study is backed by UN figures, which show that in Afghanistan, civilian casualties rose 16 per cent in the first four months of 2015.

* Agence France-Presse, Associated Press