UN reports on Taliban repression, abuse in Afghanistan

A new report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) makes for very grim reading, confirming many of the concerns Afghan human rights advocates have raised since last August, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

UNAMA catalogues serious human rights abuses that Taliban forces have committed, including summary executions and enforced disappearances of former members of the Afghan National Security Forces, which have continued months after the Taliban takeover.

It chronicles the series of Taliban decrees on the rights of women and girls that have given rise to “severe restrictions on their human rights, resulting in their exclusion from most aspects of everyday and public life.”

Taliban ignored the many cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, UNAMA documented.

Attacks by ISIS-linked armed groups continue to take a terrible toll, killing more than 700 civilians and wounding more than 1400 since August.