Wednesday, October 09, 2002

I remember seeing lots of stories about Nothern Alliance massacres of Taliban prisoners and UN and human rights groups investigations. Any sort of atrocity should be investigated but this went on for years under the Taliban and the UN-iks sat on their hands wimpering that something should be done. And now they are silent about it.

Authorities in northern Afghanistan said Wednesday they have discovered several mass graves containing the corpses of hundreds of people allegedly massacred by the former Taliban regime. One mass grave in the district of Chamatal, about 24 miles west of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, contained 350 bodies, said Mohammad Sardar Sayedi, spokesman for the main ethnic Hazara group, Hezb-e-Wahadat. All the dead were ethnic Hazaras — among them women and children likely killed in 1998 when Mazar-e-Sharif fell in heavy fighting to the Taliban, Sayedi said.

Local residents reported the grave sites to authorities, who investigated and found them full of bones, Sayedi said by telephone from Mazar-e-Sharif. ``We've found lots of mass graves around Mazar-e-Sharif since the Taliban government fell last year,'' Sayedi said. ``People come to us and point out the graves. They say they were afraid to tell anyone these things while the Taliban were in power.'' Sayedi said at least two other mass graves were found in the nearby district of Qart-e-Zarhat. He gave no details about them, however.

Hazara leaders claim their group, about 10 percent of Afghanistan's population, suffered the worst atrocities at the hands of the Taliban. They claim as many as 15,000 Hazara were killed in a religiously motivated slaughter in Mazar-e-Sharif and other parts of Afghanistan.

< email | 10/09/2002 03:41:00 PM | link