The United Nations said it has received “credible allegations” that more than 100 former members of the Afghan government, its security forces and those associated with international troops were killed by the Taliban ever since the group took over the country, The Associated Press reported on Monday.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that more than two-thirds of the deaths were allegedly from the extrajudicial killings by the Taliban or its affiliates.
The Taliban had seized control of Afghanistan on August 15 after the United States and its allies pulled their troops from the country after 20 years. The insurgent group’s return to power had triggered turmoil in Afghanistan, with thousands of people leaving the country to escape their feared rule.
On August 18, the Taliban had announced a general amnesty for government officials and had urged them to return to work. “Nobody is going to harm you, nobody is going to knock on your doors,” the group’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had said in a press conference.
Gutteres, in his report to the United Nations Security Council, said that the political mission in Afghanistan received “credible allegations” of extrajudicial killings of at least 50 individuals suspected of affiliation with the Islamic State – Khorasan Province.
The United Nations chief said that mission in Afghanistan had received allegations “of enforced disappearances and other violations impacting the right to life and physical integrity” of former government and coalition members.
“Eight civil society activists were killed,” Guterres said in his report, according to The Associated Press. “10 [persons] were subjected to temporary arrests, beatings and threats by the Taliban...Two journalists were killed – one by IS – and two were injured by unknown armed men.”
The secretary-general said the United Nations mission had documented as many as 44 cases of temporary arrests, beatings and threats of intimidation, mostly by the Taliban members.
“The situation in Afghanistan remains precarious and uncertain six months after the Taliban takeover as the multiple political, socio-economic and humanitarian shocks reverberate across the country,” Guterres said.
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