GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief said Friday that 56 Afghan civilians had been killed — nearly half of them children — since hostilities with neighboring Pakistan intensified last week.
“I plead with all parties to bring an end to the conflict, and to prioritize helping those experiencing extreme hardship,” Volker Turk said in a statement.
The neighbors have clashed along the frontier since February 26, when Afghanistan launched a border offensive in retaliation for Pakistani air strikes.
Islamabad has hit back along the border and with fresh air strikes, bombing multiple sites including the former US air base at Bagram, the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar.
Turk said that since the intensification of hostilities, “56 civilians, including 24 children and six women, have been killed.”
