Numbers of Afghan children killed by UK forces higher than disclosed

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
9 Nov 2022 17:03
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Recent figures reveal that the UK government had been covering the actual toll of children killed by their forces in Afghanistan between the years of 2006 and 2014.

UK not disclosing real number of children killed by its forces while occupying Afghanistan.

Figures come from Freedom of Information requests made by the charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV). revealed that the UK government had been covering the actual toll of children killed by their forces in Afghanistan between the years of 2006 and 2014.

Data showed that despite Britain publicly acknowledging the killing of 16 children during its invasion of Afghanistan, the government compensated for the death of 64 children.

The numbers were disclosed upon the request of the charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

The newly foreclosed children's deaths come short of a report published by The Guardian in September 2021 that revealed that the British forces in Afghanistan were behind the deaths of close to 300 civilians in Afghanistan; 86 children and more than 200 adults.

The 2021 numbers were obtained from Ministry of Defense (MoD) compensation logs, which provided much information, such as the youngest victim being three years old only, according to The Guardian.

Read more: Celebrating 70 years of British massacres!

The Action on Armed Violence charity organization (AOAV) however believes that records of killed civilians by UK forces in Afghanistan are probably an underestimate of the actual toll.

Despite the new numbers revealing that murdered children is 64, the actual number might be as high as 135 since the British MoD does not always disclose ages and death circumstances rather just sons and daughters.

AOAV says it is possible some of those 135 were adults, but the likelihood of them having been under 18 is high because of the very young average age in Afghanistan.

Given the young average age in Afghanistan, AOAV concludes that although some of the 135 recorded deaths might be adults, it's very likely that most were under the age of 18.

"These files do not make for easy reading. The banality of language means hundreds of tragic deaths, including dozens of children, read more like an inventory,” Murray Jones, the author of the research compiled by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), pointed out that while gathering in 2021 the number of deaths in Afghanistan killed by the UK forces.

“These files do not make for easy reading. The banality of language means hundreds of tragic deaths, including dozens of children, read more like an inventory.”#Afghanistan #UK #WarCrimes https://t.co/8vypKFWUGG
— Jonathan Moremi (@jonamorem) September 23, 2021

The compensation logs until September 2021 show that £688,000 was paid by the UK military for 289 deaths between 2006 and 2013, meaning an average of £2,380 per death, according to AOAV.

The recent report however stated that the British government rejected most submitted claims of 881 deaths and only compensated a quarter of that numbers.

Among those which were successful was one for eight members of the same Afghan family, killed in a coalition airstrike on a village in the Nawa district of Helmand in May 2009.

Infograph: Evidence of British commandos committing war crimes in Afghanistan

According to the records, eight members of the same family were killed in one airstrike in a village in the Nawa district in May 2009.

The UK government released compensation to those deaths in what can be an indication of an admission of responsibility.

"Any civilian death during conflict is a tragedy, more so when children and family members are involved," said the British Ministry of Defense.

However, reports provided by the Freedom of Information reveal otherwise, where the death compensations in Afghanistan in some cases were less for the death of family members compared to property damage and livestock losses.

The MoD added that while its forces try to "minimize" civilian injuries, "it can never be entirely eliminated".

The director of AOAV, Iain Overton called out the MoD's lack of transparency in disclosing the actual death toll as researchers of the organization took years to acquire the information, adding that the absence of discussion around the victims in Afghanistan raises concerns about whether lessons have been derived.

Human rights organizations have criticized numerous times the way the United Kingdom and the United States investigated deaths caused by their military operations.

Following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the US launched a strike on August 29, which resulted in the deaths of 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children.

The US Department of Defense said later stated that the airstrike killing the civilians including 7 children in Kabul on August 29 was a "tragic mistake" but did not violate the laws of war.

The US first claimed that the aggression targeted "terrorists", however, journalists on the ground exposed the lie after revealing evidence that the murdered individuals are all civilians.

Earlier in July, a Panorama documentary published by the BBC revealed disturbing evidence of SAS (The British Special Air Service) war crimes in Afghanistan.

The report showed a clear pattern of unlawful killings of Afghans by a squadron of SAS commandos during night raids, with as many as 54 victims over a six-month period.

The UK Ministry of Defense denied the claims, however, BBC said that Royal Military Police (RMP) investigators had been obstructed by military leadership.

According to the BBC, a high-ranking Special Forces officer in Afghanistan warned in a secret memo that there could be a "deliberate policy" of extrajudicial killings of fighting-age males.

The United States and its various western allies, including the United Kingdom, are behind many war crimes in Afghanistan, which they committed as part of their 20-year-long occupation of the country.

Last February, David Miliband, the former UK Foreign Secretary and Chief Executive of the International Rescue Committee, came forward and expressed that the West has caused "catastrophic" harm to Afghanistan and its own reputation by imposing a starvation strategy on the nation.

“If we wanted to create a failed state we could not have a more effective policy mix than the one we have at the moment," Miliband said.

The United States was not satisfied with destroying Afghanistan for 20 years, killing its people and looting its wealth and resources, but went even further after its humiliating withdrawal in 2021.

In February of 2022, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order releasing $7 billion in frozen Afghan funds to be shared between humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan and American victims of "terrorism", including 9/11 families.

The frozen funds include the savings of regular Afghans, who are now confronting rising violence and hunger, as well as a deteriorating economy and social stability that was created and incited by the West over the span of 20 years of occupying the country.

Australian forces killing Afghan civilians as "quotas"

A report from the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report - or the Brereton Report - published in 2020 exposed elite Australian commandos unlawfully killing civilians in Afghanistan between the years 2006 and 2015.

According to the report, senior officials ordered young commandos to execute detainees, which they called "blooding" young troops.

Apparently, the forces had "quotas" - in the videos, having a "quota of 10" civilians to kill assigned to each soldier was happily and gleefully discussed among the unit members. The word "quota" was used over 12 times in one of the videos, which was only 90 seconds long.