By Trevor Keck
In January, Afghan forces shot grenades and bullets at a remote village in Nangarhar province, in eastern Afghanistan. One civilian died, and villagers rushed six other injured residents to the hospital in Jalalabad. Nasir saw it all happen. He then had to beg $11,000 from friends and relatives to cover medical care for his injured family members.
Several days later, Nasir asked the district chief of police why Afghan forces fired on the village. “We had an intelligence report that insurgents were in the village and we wanted to scare them, so we just started firing on the village,” the police chief told him. Furious, Nasir complained to the Afghan Army Regional Corps Commander and the Provincial Governor’s office to no avail. He went to the Governor’s office itself to demand an investigation and financial help for the medical bills. An official there told him to rewrite his complaint letter to blame opposition forces. When Nasir refused to lie, he was turned away.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. Of the hundred or so families I interviewed with my colleagues for a report by Center for Civilians in Conflict, most say they’ve received nothing from their government for deaths or injuries caused by Afghan forces.
Read the article in full on Foreign Policy’s site.
