Possible Afghan war crime evidence removed

[jmm99]

E/CN.4/1998/71 - cont.

E/CN.4/1998/71
page 15

Mazar-i-Sharif area

47. The Special Rapporteur took advantage of being in the area of Mazar-i-Sharif to visit the villages where massacres are reported to have been perpetrated in September 1997 by Taliban forces during their second offensive on the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, against villagers belonging to the Hazara ethnic minority. He visited first the village of Qezelabad where he met in the mosque with the village elders and local mullah. They explained that the Taliban had arrived in the village in the afternoon and had started knocking on doors and asking for weapons. If the person who had opened the door said that they did not have any, they were shot on the spot, in front of their family. If a person provided a weapon, they were allegedly shot on the spot by the Taliban with that same weapon. A number of farmers from the village were killed in the fields, some reportedly with their own agricultural implements. A group of 14 or 15 young men were taken from the village to the nearby airport where they were tortured and subsequently executed. The Special Rapporteur was told that a total of 53 villagers were killed in Qezelabad and that some 20 houses were set on fire. He walked about the village and was able to observe in two locations the graves of a number of those who had been killed. The Special Rapporteur was told that the killings were carried out on religious grounds, since the villagers were Hazara Shias, and out of revenge, because the village had fiercely resisted the Taliban during their first offensive on Mazar-i-Sharif in May 1997.

48. In the same context, the Special Rapporteur visited in the Dehdadi district near Mazar-i-Sharif the village of Sheikhabad where he met in the mosque with the local elders and village mullah. He was told that all the inhabitants had fled the village fearing the arrival of Taliban forces, except for the oldest among them. The Taliban had reportedly entered the village, tortured and killed the old men and mutilated and dismembered some of their bodies. A total of 30 elderly people are reported to have been killed in Sheikhabad. Although the Taliban were said to be the perpetrators of the killings, the villagers believed that the killings could also have been carried out by the forces of local Pashtun commanders who had joined the Taliban. The Special Rapporteur was told that killings of a similar type had also taken place in a number of other villages in the area. Owing to logistical constraints, the Special Rapporteur was unable to discuss the allegations formulated above with the competent Taliban authorities.