KABUL - Child casualties have soared in Afghanistan this year as the Taliban stepped up attacks in urban areas, the United Nations said Sunday, branding the figures "appalling".
Between January and March, 161 children were killed and 449 others injured -- a 29 percent increase from a year earlier -- the UN's mission in Afghanistan said in a report.
Danielle Bell, the mission's human rights director, said women and children have suffered the most as the insurgents have launched more bomb attacks in populated areas.
"In the first quarter of 2016, almost one third of civilian casualties were children," said Bell in the report.
"If the fighting persists near schools, playgrounds, homes and clinics, and parties continue to use explosive weapons in those areas... these appalling numbers of children killed and maimed will continue. Increased fighting in populated areas continues to kill and injure women and children at higher rates that the general population." The figures come days after the Taliban launched its spring offensive by trying to retake control of Kunduz, the northeastern provincial capital they briefly captured last year.
The militants have intensified their insurgency since the end of NATO's combat mission in 2014, launching brazen attacks on urban areas that saw last year become the bloodiest for civilians on record. In the first three months of 2016, 600 civilians were killed and 1,343 were injured, the report said. The number of deaths fell 13 percent from a year ago, while the number of injuries rose by 11 percent. The Taliban were responsible for six out of every 10 casualties, according to the UN's report. Last year, there were 11,002 civilian casualties, including 3,545 deaths, according to UN figures released in February.
Afghan refugees outpace those returning
The slow trickle of Afghan refugees returning home is at historic lows, dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands being displaced by ongoing fighting and economic problems, according to United Nations officials. So far this year about 2,200 refugees have returned to Afghanistan, on track to match 2014, which saw the lowest number of returnees since the start of a voluntary repatriation process in 2001.
"It is much lower than we would have expected," said U.N. Assistant High Comissioner for Operations George Okoth-Obbo, who visited Kabul on Sunday as part of a regional trip.
About 2.4 million Afghan refugees remain in foreign countries. More than 200,000 Afghans fled to Europe in 2015, according to UNHCR figures, and untold others sought sanctuary in Pakistan, Iran, and within Afghanistan itself, Okoth-Obbo said.
"The Afghan refugee crisis is not impacting only Europe," he said, noting that already in 2016, 80,000 Afghans have been forced from their homes, joining more than a million others currently internally displaced within the country.
UN officials urged the international community to work with the Afghan government to try to support and reintegrate refugees and other displaced people so they can benefit from government programs and not rely on foreign aid.
"As the international spotlight focuses on Afghans on the move to Europe, it is important to remember that the largest and most vulnerable displaced populations in need are right here in their home country and in the regional neighbourhood," the UN's top refugee official in Afghanistan, Maya Ameratunga, said in a statement.
Last year, some 60,000 Afghans voluntarily returned home, Okoth-Obbo said. That was unusually high as Afghan refugees in Pakistan faced increased "harassment, extortion, and other push factors" by officials in the wake of terrorist attacks, according to the UN.