Hundreds of Hazaras killed in Afghanistan since Taliban takeover

Kabul, Sept 7: Hazara communities in Afghanistan are targeted in violent attacks by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, with more than 700 people killed in 13 attacks in the past year, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

 

 

 

In the report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Taliban of doing little to protect Hazara and other religious minorities from suicide bombings and deadly attacks and failing to provide adequate medical care and assistance to victims and their families, despite pledging to do so when they took power in August 2021.

 

 

 

A Taliban spokesperson said that the government had taken the “necessary measures” to protect the Hazara and that the report did not reflect the reality on the ground. The ISKP has been behind attacks on Hazara mosques, schools, and workplaces across Afghanistan said HRW. “The issue isn’t that the Taliban is responsible for the violence. They’re responsible for not providing adequate security to their own people,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at HRW. “If they’re going to act as the governing authorities, their first priority should be protecting their own people from violence by this insurgent group.” The Hazara, a predominantly Shia Muslim ethnic minority group in Afghanistan, have been historically persecuted by the Taliban and other groups. Sifton said that while the new Taliban government has become comparatively more accepting of the Hazara and other religious minorities, the ISKP, who have been rapidly gaining power in some areas of the country, continue to view all Shia groups as heretics and “enemies of Islam”. ISKP has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in April that targeted Hazara-majority schools as well as the largest Shia mosques. HRW said it fears that many attacks in the provinces are going unreported due to the Taliban’s tightened grip on media. On 19 April, six people were killed and at least 20 injured in a suicide bomb attack at Abdul Rahim Shahid high school in west Kabul. “There were dead bodies everywhere,” said a survivor. Two days later, 31 people were killed and 87 injured when ISKP bombed Seh Dokan mosque in Mazar-e Sharif, one of Afghanistan’s largest Shia mosques, which has now shut down.

 

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Later that month, 14 people were killed and 13 injured in multiple attacks targeting Hazara at their workplaces and in public in Samangan province and in Mazar-e Sharif city. In Kabul, 120 people were killed and injured on 7 August while celebrating the Shia holiday of Ashura, UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported.