KABUL -- Militants in Afghanistan "deliberately and knowingly" targeted civilians during the month of Ramadan, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Sunday (June 9).
Insurgents killed or wounded more than 100 civilians in Kabul alone, UNAMA said in a statement on its website. The organisation called on anti-government militants to stop attacking innocent citizens.
"I condemn these deliberate attacks on civilians that signal a disturbing intent to spread fear; they delegitimize the perpetrators, depriving them of any claim to represent the people of Afghanistan," Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, said in the statement.
"In international law, all parties to the conflict are prohibited from deliberate attacks carried out against civilians; by definition, these are war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity," Yamamoto added. "There is no justification whatsoever for any party to the conflict to attack civilians; they must never be a target."
