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CIVIC Urges Warring Parties in Afghanistan to Protect Civilians
The Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) condemns the increase in violence across Afghanistan resulting in over 4,000 civilian deaths and injuries this year.
The organization urges all warring parties in Afghanistan to adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law and take all measures to prevent civilian deaths and injuries.
“Too little attention is being paid to stop the violence and end the suffering of Afghan civilians,” Sahr Muhammedally, Director of MENA & South Asia, said. “All parties to the conflict must protect civilians, civilian property, and medical facilities.”
While US and Taliban peace talks were ongoing (as of September they were suspended), fighting continued with devastating consequences for civilians.
Tactics such as suicide attacks, airstrikes, and search operations conducted in rural and urban areas are killing and maiming women, men, and children who had no part in the fighting. Civilian infrastructure such as homes, mosques, schools, and health care facilities are being hit as well.
The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which has been recording casualties since 2009, attributed 37 percent of all casualties to Afghan and international forces and 52 percent to armed opposition groups in just the first half of 2019.
A joint declaration by the Taliban, Afghan civil society, and some government representatives at the Intra-Afghan Dialogue in Doha in July 2019 committed all parties to the conflict to respect and protect people and their property and to minimize civilian casualties to zero. But the violence has intensified since then.
In August, the Islamic State attacked a wedding party killing 92 and injuring 142. On September 17 a Taliban suicide attack on a campaign rally in Parwan, north of Kabul, killed at least 26 civilians and injured more than 42. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, wrongly calling the campaign rally a “military target.” On September 19, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb at an Afghan intelligence facility in Qalat City, Zabul, which caused severe structural damage to a hospital 20 meters away and private residences, killing 22, and wounding 90.
Afghan and international forces have also intensified airstrikes and search operations, which have resulted in a spike in civilian casualties. In August, an Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) raid reportedly killed 11 civilians in Paktika Province. In September, an NDS raid in Jalalabad, Nangarhar Province resulted in the deaths of four civilians, prompting the head of the NDS to resign. On September 19, a US drone strike targeting the Islamic State in Nangarhar province reportedly killed civilians and is under investigation by US forces.
“The current intensity in fighting to advance military goals, resulting in civilian harm cannot go on. All sides must review their military tactics and make determined efforts to reduce, investigate, and acknowledge civilian harm,” Muhammedally said.
Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) works with civilians and armed actors in the conflict to prevent, mitigate, and respond to civilian harm.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
Sixty-one members of the U.S. Congress have urged the Trump administration to reverse its decision to halt immigration processing for Afghan nationals, warning that the move unfairly targets Afghan nationals following a deadly shooting involving two National Guard members.
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the lawmakers said the incident should not be used to vilify Afghans who are legally seeking entry into the United States. They stressed that Afghan applicants undergo extensive vetting involving multiple U.S. security agencies.
The letter criticized the suspension of Special Immigrant Visa processing, the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan, and broader travel and asylum restrictions, warning that such policies endanger Afghan allies who supported U.S. forces during the war.
“Exploiting this tragedy to sow division and inflame fear will not make America safer. Abandoning those who made the courageous choice to stand beside us signals to those we may need as allies in the future that we cannot be trusted to honor our commitments. That is a mistake we cannot afford,” the group said.
The U.S. admitted nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their families still wait at military bases and refugee camps around the world for a small number of SIVs.
An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 struck Afghanistan on Friday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The quake occurred at 10:09 local time at a depth of 35 km, USGS said.
Its epicentre was 25 kilometres from Nahrin district of Baghlan province in north Afghanistan.
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